This is a guest post by one of Japanite! friends, who visited Tokyo recently and collected some proven advices before his trip. Some veteran Tokyo tourists will find them familiar, but if this is your first time, you might want to print out the list for the road.

1. Sleep in a Japanese Inn

Accommodation is always a great part in any travel budget. If you are not fixed on sleeping in high-priced hotels there are some great alternatives.

The Ryokans are all around Tokyo and they are nice inns that can be found in prices starting from $40 per night. The bonus is that they styled in old fashion Japanese style with paper curtains and futon bed. This is not your regular king size you are used to in high priced hotels, but this will be a much better way to feel the Japanese way of life.

If you are not spoiled and feel you can share bathrooms you can found some Ryokans in central spots for as low as $30 per night. For example you can find Kimi Ryokan that offers English speaking staff and some Japanese atmosphere for $50 per night for a single room. Kimi Ryokan is conveniently located in the Ikebukuro area in close proximity to a subway station.

a typical Ryokan (photo by spinksy)

You can search availability and prices through the International tourism center of Japan for foreign travelers, and Japanese guest houses.

If you are staying for a long period and you are willing to share a room, you can try some of the hostels in the city that are called Gaijin (Stranger in Japanese) Houses. You can find room in rates from $15 per night, and who knows your roommate can be from country.

Start your search in Gaijin House Japan.

2. Travelling alone? try a capsule

We already mentioned here in Japanite! the capsule hotels that are scattered around Tokyo. This hotels (if we can call them one) are for the more adventurous type of tourist. For about $30-$40 you get a capsule with TV, internet connection, shared bath and some towels. If you are a female traveler who travels alone, some might prefer the capsule hotels who accept only women, and feel more safe in the hotel.

Geobeats have a nice video that shows what a sleep in a capsule is all about:

3. Sleep in a chair – for the really adventurous traveler

Some of the backpackers that go through Tokyo have found another way to save in this expensive city: they just sleep in their chairs.

They are called Mangakissa and they are actually internet cafes that are scattered around the city. For about a $1 per hour you will be able to enjoy an endless supply of Japanese comic books, Playstation and Xbox games, and hundreds of titles of music to listen too. Actually for some of the people I know, it will cost them less to be in Tokyo than sitting in their homes in the US doing exactly the same things. In many of this cafes the drinks are for free, and they sell lunch boxes. Some of them offer shower rooms and massage room with extra pay. Anyway it’s a great stop even if you’re not planning on a sleepover. Just don’t say we didn’t warn you: the comic books are in Japanese.

Search for internet cafes in PaperLantern.

4. Avoid the lunch rush hour

After a good night sleep, lunch is always hard to find. If you wake up early in Tokyo, you can find some of the best deals between 11am-14pm. Many restaurants will offer a lunch deal that can be as low as $10, for an plate loaded with sushi or a nice dish of Ramen noodles and meat.

The problem is that you want to try eating your lunch before 12pm and after 13:30pm, in order to avoid the “lunch rush hour” caused by the office workers around the city.

(photo by jetalone)

In the smaller restaurants you can eat while standing or sitting with a small table, and can find a good dish of ramen noodles for about $3.5-$6. Many stores like 7-eleven offers a lunch box (Bento) which can be bought for about $5. Avoid the lunch boxes that are sold in train stations, they tend to be less tasty.

If you are missing home, why not try the usual McDonalds. a BigMac will cost you only $2.5, and a meal is only $6. That’s lower than you might find in your regular McDonalds back home.

5. Shop in the markets, avoid the big stores

Tokyo may offer great deals for sleeping or eating, but unfortunately you might not find such cheap deals via the megastores around. Most brand name stores are pretty expensive, and even the smaller ones, aren’t the best deal around.

For a bit more Japanese atmosphere and much lower prices, head down to the flea markets that can be found around the city. paperlantern is a great source of markets locations.

Look around also for the “hyaku-en shoppu” or the 100-yen shops, which sells everything in about $1 (depends on the rate). You can found more details on this shops here.

6. Forget taxis, get on bikes

A great way to see the city is on bikes. You can rent bikes for about $5 per day and $10 in the weekends. There are many bike renting shops across the city, and you can find a list of shops in Cycle Tokyo.

You don’t need Hello Kitty bikes, but you get the idea (photo by doctorrow)

Another great way is of course trains and subway. The subway can get you anywhere and it’s clean and safe. In some train lines you can also find women only cars, so you can travel in confidence.

If you are on a tight budget, don’t get on taxis. Cabs in Tokyo starts at $7 per ride and adds about $1 for every few hundred feet. It’s a sure way to get your money disappear quickly.

7. A tour guide for free

It can be better than this: a free local tour guide that will show you around the city. As the name implies Tokyo Free Guide offers guides that are doing this completely free of charge. The volunteers students that want to improve their English or retired people that are happy to meet tourists from all around the world. As you know, good things aren’t easy to come by, so you’d better book you guide 2-3 weeks in advance.

Just our word of advice, we heard that some of the guides are not saying no for nice tip if you liked the trip. That’s more than polite to be generous to the guide, based on your satisfaction. You can also find more information on free tour guides through the Japanese National Tourist Organization.

8. Shop in Muji and Uniqlou

Muji is the Japanese equivalent of Ikea, and you can find tons of stuff there in very affordable prices, including toys and art times. Uniqlou is not so kept secret but will allow you to shop for clothes, without feeling you are

That’s all our tips for now. As we’ve said some of them maybe familiar to the locals and people who already traveled Japan. If you have any more tips, share them in the comments below.

It’s a known saying that in Tokyo you can really see the future. But again Japanese people surprise us with their ideas.

If you want a spectacular wedding, why not doing it in space? A new service in Japan let you book your space wedding in advance from the now. The new service is being offered by Rocketplane, a company in Japan that plans on space trips, in cooperation with First advantage (a marketing company), and Ladirb, a Japanese wedding planning company.

The guests will have to stay on ground, while you float in a spaceship with your loved one 100km above ground for about an hour. The ceremony will be transmitted live to your guests. You get a video of the ceremony, a photo album, and help with accommodation to your guests.

In order to get on this spaceship you will have to go through four day training. Which will undoubtedly can do miracles to your relationship before the wedding. "Honey, do I look fat in this space suit?" are the kind of question that you will have to deal with. We also don’t guarantee that you won’t get a little dizzy on your wedding night, after floating in outer space.

For this nice original wedding you will have to get 2.22 million dollars or 240 million yen if you live in Japan. That’s a lot cheaper than getting your wife a new luxury house on the coast of San-Francisco, for example. Registration starts next month, and the weddings are planned to start at 2011.

If you met your bride in a Japanese maid café, and you plan on raising a robo-dog, we see no other option than to start this weird family somewhere in the galaxy. And we still don’t want to think what your mother in law will have to say on all of this.

If you are interested, Ladirb is offering also eco-weddings and sport-weddings in a soccer stadium.

More (Japanese): [Space Wedding] via [PinkTentacle]

In Japan you can see many weird and bizarre signs in public spaces. This is one the most strange we have ever seen.

The sign can be seen near the town of Karuizawa, which is in the Nagano prefecture (much like a large district). It was set up there by a local volunteer group to warn drivers from hitting frogs on the road. The nonprofit animal protection group Picchio, hopes it will cause the drivers to pay attention and drive slower during this time of the year which is the mating season for the frogs.

Let’s all wish that every frog will find it’s soul mate this season!

Source (Japanese): [Mainichi]

And what’s better than some of the beautiful Japanese maids that walk around in Tokyo? If you still doesn’t know in Akihabara neighborhood in Tokyo you get into maid cafes, where the waitresses are dressed as maids. Don’t think that the girls are disadvantaged. There are also male cafes, where you can see men dressed as maids. You also have mom cafes where they dressed as moms – but that’s for a different visit to Tokyo.

They are dressed like this because of the Otaku – Japanese geeks – who love to see the girls in this outfit as part of their love to anima, the Japanese animation.

So take a look, and don’t hesitate to call to you travel agent and get on the next plane to this wonderful city. If you’ll click on the pictures you’ll get into the Flickr page of the photographer. Enjoy!

No. 2 – Mystery maid:

No. 3 – Young ones:

No. 4 – Promotional maid:

No 5. – Another promotional maid:

Tell us in the comments what you think and maybe there will be another part of pictures.

The ministry of tourism in Japan hopes that due to the popularity of this too-cute feline, tourists from neighboring countries will flock to Japan and spent some cash. As well informed readers of Japanite! already know the country offer tourist attractions like maid cafes and robot wars.

The mega cat is apparently 34 years old, and was invented by Sanrio, a toy company. since then, the kitty has appeared on 50,000 products in 60 countries.

This isn’t the first time that Japanese expect their drawn figures to bring them tourists. Just a month ago the Japanese foreign minister appointed Doraemon, the anime cat, as an “anime ambassador”.

We wish good luck to the cute cat, but still thinks that Nahoko Shimada, the McDonalds porn start might have been a better in attracting the sophisticated tourists.

More: [DailyNews]

Now let’s say that there is a big convention in the city and all the popular hotels are already full. What will you do? well, there is always the Capsule inn. For less than $40 a night you can get yourself comfortable genuine sardine can room.

What do you get for this low price? each room has blinds to be drawn for complete privacy. In the capsule unit, amenities like a TV, radio, alarm clock and adjustable lighting are provided. You can control all these devices in a sleeping position, as if you were in a cockpit of an aircraft, or spacecraft.

And if you think you recall this aircraft from somewhere, well you are right:

You might recall the movie The Fifth Element, directed by Luc Besson. Our capsule units will remind you of the main character, Bruce Willis’ small living and sleeping area.

We can continue for on and on about the 1m x 1m x 2m, about the separate woman floors and special 4 capsules in a room for a group of women traveling together. But we think you just better decide for yourself on the hotel for your next vacation.

[Capsule Inn]