City Guide To Tokyo – by Caroline

Caroline takes us on a guided tour of her favorite cafe’s, hot springs, Tokyo escapes, stores, music events, gardens, food, and festivals in Tokyo! Caroline’s sophomore album Verdugo Hills comes out January 25th via Temporary Residence, check out our recent exclusive interview with her!

MP3: Caroline “Swimmer”

Cafes: Japanese cafes are so precious and the meals are yummy, healthy and well-balanced. Many cafes try to include small plates of several different types of food -veggies, fish, meat, grains, etc. Here are some of my favorites: Bob’s Cafe in Yutenji, Lotus in Aoyama, organic macrobiotic Asantesana Cafe in Ebisu.

Design Festa: A couple times a year 7000 artists/musicians/designers bring the Tokyo big site convention hall to life with over 2000 booths of live music, painting, performance, photos, clothes, pottery, sculptures, food, and so much incredible talent!! Never in my life have a seen such a unified concentration of beautiful, inspiring, original creativity.

Tokyu Hands: Tokyu Hands is an awesome store. With 8 floors divided into 24 cascading sub-floors, there are sections for just about anything you can imagine – art project kits and pieces, stationary, bikes, travel bags, mattresses, pet food, cosmetics, toys, and kitchen sink faucets. Just by looking around in the store, I get inspired to be creative. I have made hardcover books using kits from Tokyu hands and now my sis and I are getting excited about making glass objects- like jewelry boxes. inspiring store!

Hanami in Nakameguro: During the spring, sakuras blossom along Meguro river in Nakameguro. During this season, every few steps there is a picnic or party (depending what time of day) going on under Sakura trees. The line of Sakura trees, the fluttering petals dropping to the ground, and pink river are breath-taking.

Ramen: Maybe some of you heard about all the ramen shop tv shows and magazines? Japanese take their ramen seriously. It’s not just soup and noodles. It’s about the thickness of the noodle, what the noodle is made of, how soft/hard you want the noodles (there’s probably about 10 levels), the flavor of the soup, the level of spice (again, maybe 10 levels), toppings, etc. actually about a month ago, I ran into a huge ramen festival, ‘Tokyo Ramen Show‘. There were around 50 ramen booths that represented ramen shops around Tokyo and each had a mile-long line of customers taste-testing. Some of my favorite ramen shops: Afuri, Ippudo and Kouryu.

Kaiten Zushi: Kaiten Zushi is a revolving conveyor belt that winds around the restaurant with plates of sushi riding on top. Customers sit on the outside of the belt (while sushi chefs are on the inside) and pick the sushi they want off the belt. I love picking one plate at a time because you never over eat! And of course the sushi is usually excellent.

Karaoke: Karaoke is a must if you’re in Tokyo. You rent a private karaoke room by the hour, order drinks and food, and sing away. There are loads of English songs! Some karaoke rooms are stylized in different themes -retro, Indian, clowns, etc. – and come equipped with costumes/wigs, and percussion. Sometimes I go during the day to practice vocals. You change the key of the songs to match your register. =)

Music Festivals: Japan throws the most beautiful, organized festivals in the world. Fuji Rock, Taico, and Electro-glide are my favorite!

Shimokitazawa: This is the best place to go for vintage clothes shopping! It’s also less hectic and less corporate from places like Shibuya.

Onsens (hot springs): The best part about Tokyo is that you can escape to another world with a train or bus ride. My recommendation is Kukuna Onsen in Kawaguchiko (near Kawaguchiko Lake and a view of Mount Fuji).

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