I was a bit tangled up during my first visit. Figuring out everything took a lot out of me. Leaving very less time to explore the uncharted realms of Tokyo. But, this time around, I came prepared and loaded with wisdom from my last stay. And guess what? I found out there are various things about Tokyo, that many people don’t know and won’t hear in a YouTube video or a travel blog.
Convenience Stores Will Most Probably Rip You Off
Every corner of Tokyo has those 24/7 convenient stores, filled with things of every need. But, they’ll probably rip you off. Ironically enough, most foreigners are quite unaware about the fact and you’d rarely see any videos regarding it. For someone like me, who had the pleasure of living in Tokyo for more than a month and did some exploring; I noticed how much price of a single item varies between different stores. For example, a 1.5 liter of Coke can cost you nearly 320 yen in FamilyMart; while that same Coke costs just 150 yen in a super shop called Peacock. This price difference is true for every single item you’d find in a convenient store in Tokyo. That’s how you do business in Tokyo fellas.
Sakura Flavor Pepsi
Like most people, I was an enthusiastic and curious tourist looking for those infamous and weird flavor snacks and drinks. After going through countless shops throughout Tokyo, I found out only weird flavored snacks you can find are Kitkats; anything else is close to none existential. Best thing about my snack and drink adventure was, out of all the stores I visited, none of them had a Pepsi in stock. NONE! Would be really nice if any kind soul could fill me in on why there was no Pepsi, because google was no help. Anyways, most of the flavored snacks or drinks are usually limited editions and hard to come across once they are sold out. Good luck finding your Sakura Flavor Pepsi, fam.
Akihabara is Overrated!
Weebs, if you think Akihabara is your heaven, prepare to be disappointed. Akihabara is mostly filled with figurine shops, arcades and vending machines for figurines. If you go deep inside, you’ll find second-hand electronics shop and those popular maid cafes. I assume, the maid cafes are the only thing weebs can rejoice about. Other than that, the whole place is quite down to earth and lacks the anime-esque environment or stuffs you’d hope for.
Forget Rice and Sushi, Cabbage Should Be the Food Representing Japan!
If you ever go to Tokyo and decide to eat some Japanese cuisine, or any food that has a bit of Japanese touch to it, you’ll definitely find one vegetable in it. That’s cabbage. Sometimes, there were more cabbage compare to actual food for some of the items I had luxury of eating. At first it was bothersome, but oddly enough you get used to it. But, sadly, no one talks about this.
Taxi is for Very Rich People
I hate Uber for this honestly. After getting used to calling an Uber, whenever I had some extra cash in my wallet or just was too lazy to use public transport. Not being able to do so in Tokyo, was very painful. A single ride in an Uber or local Taxi can cost you over 10,000 yen. FYI, the average salary in Japan is around 3,00,000 yen. Imagine taking 10 taxi ride and bam, 1/3 of your salary is gone. Now, you know why Japanese people use the public transportation more often.
These are all the tidbits I could thought of. Hopefully, this should give you some basic ideas of how Tokyo really is in reality compared to the stuffs you see or hear.