1) Start the day early at the Tsukiji Fish Market – you can see one of the world’s largest live Fish Market – There are some restrictions now like when you can visit – so check that out here You can get early morning Sushi breakfast, as early as 5am here. Its the freshest sushi you can get (straight from the ocean!).

2) Ginza: Take a morning walk/stroll from Tsukiji to Ginza, the Fifth Avenue of Tokyo – its a long walk, but you can see the heart of Tokyo come to life in the morning, plus you’ll walk by a classic Kabuki Theater.

3) Asakusa: Get on the Ginza line when you’ve seen enough and goto Asakusa. Asakusa has a big shrine and lots of little stores with Chotskies. Find some classic Soba noodles to slurp or Yaki-soba at a food stand.

4) Kappabashi: Take the Ginza line back toward the town center and get off at Tawara-machi. It is not very well-known, but where you find life-size plastic moldings of all kinds of foods, like sushi and ramen. It is used by restaurants thru Japan. It makes a great gift for back home.

5) Akihabara: Start your afternoon with a visit to Akihabara, he gadget/hobby/electronics heaven. You’ll find the entire neighborhood crawling with anime, latest gadgets, and weird electronics stores.

6) Harajuku: Take the Yamanote Line (above ground green train) Now assault your senses with the latest in Tokyo teen-fashion. This is where Tokyo teens dressed up goth before there was a word for it. There is a street called “Takenoko Doori” – literally Bamboo Street, that is a narrow winding street that has the highest vintage clothes store per square foot.

7) Meiji Shrine: Rest your senses with a serene visit to Tokyo’s largest shrine – Meiji was one of the great emperors of modern Japan.

8 ) Shibuya: if you can still walk, walk to Shibuya via Yoyogi Park (site of 1960 Olympics) its a good walk to the entertainment center of Tokyo. Visit Tokyu Hands, a hobby store that is now a 9 story department store with all kinds of little gadgets/tshotchkies.

9) Shinjuku: Take the Yamanote line to Shinjuku at night, and prepare to be “Lost in Translation”. Night scene (more specifically the safe red-light district) is here.

10) Roppongi: If you’re looking for English speaking bars and clubs, and for “late night” clubbing – you can’t beat Roppongi, which is where the gai-jin (foreigners) come for British pub crawl to hyper-kinetic disco dancing. It is close to the US embassy compound – which is why it became a “hip” part of town, way back in 1970s. You should easily be able to find something to do here until its morning.

It would be super-human to do this all in one-day, but if you’re not yet 30, perhaps you can.

Have a great time!

So when I returned to the U.S., I wanted to see if I could find “authentic falafel” anywhere in the SF Bay Area.  This is where Google, Yelp, and all other search engines continue to fail me.  I’ve tried almost all the places that appear on Yelp’s list of Falafel places.  What I really need is this new threshold – “falafel as good as in the middle east”.  Of course, a google search with this term ” ” ed returned NOTHING. 

The last frontier of search. Filter restaurants by an objective measure of tastiness.