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.

Oto-San is featured in the commercial as the head of a Japanese family and promotes the mobile operator plans. It’s popularity grow so quickly that now Softbank decided to release a DVD with Oto-San daily life. The DVD is scheduled to be released during September.

In order to sign his new movie contract Oto-San has arrived in a limousine to the headquarters of Softbank, and signed the agreement with Softbank president Yuichi Kato. Two scary looking bodyguards escorted him all the way from the limo to the building.

The dog doesn’t come cheap. You will have to cough up $24 for the Dog’s DVD only, and $31 for a DVD plus a lunch box.

You can watch some of Oto-San short commercials here:

And here:

So let’s sum up: A dog is the head of the family and sells mobile phones gets to be the star of a new film. Not bad for an ordinary weird day in Japan.

via [Japan Today]

The new survival gear for cats and dogs from Rinkya offers a life saving vest for your beloved pet. This is not just a shiny outfit for Lassie, but also flame resistant. You also get specially packed water bags and biscuits so your pet can have something to chew on, while you run away from disaster area.

As a bonus you get also aromatherapy oils to calm your pet during disaster. The price will surely get you anxious: $375 and it’s yours.

More photos of the Japanese survival gear:

[Product Page] via [Rinkya]

Many times its work related when they are killing themselves at work. Sometimes it is when their pet is lost, and sometimes it’s just because they have to talk to the opposite sex.

Here comes to the rescue the stress relief vase or Sakebi no Tsufu. The principle is simple: you shout into the vase and that cause you to become calm and relaxed.

We have to admit hat Japan have a long tradition of spiritual relaxation that are sometimes beyond western eyes – but we fail to see how a weird Japanese vase can make you relaxed.

For $48 it surely makes the manufacturer pretty relaxed about its revenue. If you are really in stress, just shout on anything. Trust us; it will have the same effect.

More: [Amazon Japan] via [CrunchGear]

Japanese animals probably know how to read. Since we have no other explanation why road signs are focused on them. After the “Frogs crossing sign“, here comes the sign for not feeding the pigeons.

via [blizzardboy]

The scientist have create a bowl of noodles or ramen (the Japanese version for noodles) in the size of 1/25,000 of an inch. the bowl which was created in the university of Tokyo is an example of what can be done with nanotube-processing technology this days.

If you were hoping on taking a spoon and digging into the bowl, you’ll be a bit disappointed. The bowl is just a mockup, and the noodles are actually made of carbon, not a very tasty ingredient in your bowl. It wouldn’t get you over your hunger also. The “noodles” in bowl are only 1/1.25 million of an inch, so you’ll need about 1.25 million bowls to get one normal noodle.

What’s a bit more weird in this story is that the scientists kept this ramen bowl for themselves for almost two years. They’ve only exposed this photo when they wanted to get the bowl into a contest. If you are in the management of the university of Tokyo, get them a free meal at McDonald’s. They must be hungry after splitting this bowl for two years.

[Yahoo News]

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]

Yosuke, the African grey parrot in this story flew out of his cage, from it’s home in the city of Nagareyama, near Tokyo. After policemen got him from a rooftop in the city, they got him into a veterinary clinic. In there the parrot start telling the cops that he is “Mr. Yosuke Nakamura”. he also provided them with the full address, including the house number.

The police contacted the Nakamura family and they admitted to have taught the bird his name for about two years.

What’s more weird in this story that the parrot only talked to the vet, and not the cops. Makes you wonder who got him trained to keep his mouth shut in front of policemen?

Source: [Canadian Press]

Japanese people are love new technologies and gadgets. Even if the gadgets are a bit weird. Take the new laundry dehydrator for example, it looks weird but it’s pretty cool.

Most clothes dryers use heat to dry the clothes. The problem with such dryers is that they use lot of electricity, and sometime even ruin delicate clothes because of the intense heat.

The fast laundry dehydrator uses dehumidification to extract the water out of the clothes within 3-5 minutes. Leaving them dry and without any damage. The only problem is that you have to hold the cloth while doing that, which may require several hours if you aren’t’ doing laundry each day.

According to the manufacturer this process also saves energy, which is good for both your electricity bill and planet earth. The dehydrator from Somela will cost $173 (18,000 yen).

This isn’t the first time Japanese scientists try to re-invent the laundry machine. Back in August, Toshiba introduced a new washing machine that is also a dryer and an air-conditioner. While will someone want this weird washing machine? We have no clue. But Toshiba thinks you’ll pay about $2,949 dollars (310,000 Yen) in order to have this kind of washing machine at home – models not included.

Product age (Japanese): [Rakuten], Translated [Rakuten]

Toshiba Washing machine (Japanese): [Watch Impress]

If you thought that recycling garbage, paper, plastics and electronics covers about everything – well, prepared to be surprised.

The Fukuoka municipal government in Japan decided to recycle used dentures (false teeth) . Around the city will be designated boxes where people can throw away their old dentures. If you think that with this new recycling effort you will be able to get dentures for cheap – you are out of luck. The teeth will be send to recycling factories where precious metals can be extracted from the used teeth. You can find metals like gold and platinum in false teeth and dentures and that’s mean money.

The project administration estimates that each set of teeth can be worth $30 of precious metals. Consider the natural habit of the Japanese to recycle, and you’ve got a gold mine in your hands. But this time it’s for a good cause: The money collected from recycling the teeth will be donated to UNICEF.

What’s next on Japan weird recycling list? Let us know if you’ve got any ideas.

More in [Mainichi]