Tokyo For Free

Tokyo For Free is a Kodansha International publication.

Super Cheap Tokyo is all you’ll need for a budget holiday in Tokyo or the surrounding Kanto region. With a large choice of discount passes, tax-free shopping and an unbelievable exchange rate, now is the time to come! Unlike other Tokyo guides, this book shows you exactly how, where and when you can save money. Grab a traditional Japanese meal for $3, buy clothes in fashion heaven Harajuku for under $10, spend next to nothing on a day’s hiking or relax in a free Japanese garden; it’s all here in this easy-to-use travel guide. Inside the Super Cheap Tokyo guide book: Budget food - comprehensive listings of low-cost restaurants, take-outs, supermarkets, so you’ll never be lost for a cheap meal Budget shopping - 100 yen ($1) shops, free sample hotspots, how and where to go tax-free shopping, all the best attraction discounts and freebies Color maps for budget travelers, making it easy and stress-free to get around Highlights and itineraries based on discount subway and train passes, so you can keep costs down while exploring all across the region Tokyo’s hidden treasures - walking routes via historic neighborhoods to cut down on train fares, inexpensive side trips and free alternatives to busy, overpriced spots Essential help for budget travelers - free tours, simple to understand directions, simplified transportation maps, translations for places that don’t have English support and basic Japanese phrases to help you get better prices on your trip Cheap accommodation - the best and cheapest hostels, family-friendly hotels, capsule hotels, net cafes, overnight spas, campsites and more Guides to central Tokyo and the Imperial Palace, Harajuku, Shibuya, Akihabara, Asakusa, the Skytree, Odaiba, Shinjuku, Shin-Okubo, Ueno, Mount Fuji, Kamakura, Yokohama, Nikko, Hakone, Mount Takao, Mount Mitake, as well as many other highlights and off-the-beaten-track spots nearby Based on the top-selling Super Cheap Japan guidebook (ISBN 978-1-9998100-0-9), this book is perfect for backpackers, budget travelers, families on a tight budget, students and those who are new to Tokyo. You’ll have an amazing time, without blowing all your money away!

This prize-winning book is both an illustrated tour of a Tokyo rarely seen in Japan travel guides and an artist's warm, funny, visually rich, and always entertaining graphic memoir. Florent Chavouet, a young graphic artist, spent six months exploring Tokyo while his girlfriend interned at a company there. Each day he would set forth with a pouch full of color pencils and a sketchpad, and visit different neighborhoods. This stunning book records the city that he got to know during his adventures. It isn't the Tokyo of packaged tours and glossy guidebooks, but a grittier, vibrant place, full of ordinary people going about their daily lives and the scenes and activities that unfold on the streets of a bustling metropolis. Here you find businessmen and women, hipsters, students, grandmothers, shopkeepers, policemen, and other urban types and tribes in all manner of dress and hairstyles. A temple nestles among skyscrapers; the corner grocery anchors a diverse assortment of dwellings, cafes, and shops--often tangled in electric lines. The artist mixes styles and tags his pictures with wry comments and observations. Realistically rendered advertisements or posters of pop stars contrast with cartoon sketches of iconic objects or droll vignettes, like a housewife walking her pet pig, a Godzilla statue in a local park, and an urban fishing pond that charges 400 yen per half hour. This very personal guide to Tokyo is organized by neighborhood with hand-drawn maps that provide an overview of each neighborhood, but what really defines them is what caught the artist's eye and attracted his formidable drawing talent. Florent Chavouet begins his introduction by observing that, "Tokyo is said to be the most beautiful of ugly cities." With wit, a playful sense of humor, and the multicolor pencils of his kit, he sets aside the question of urban ugliness or beauty and captures the Japanese essence of a great city in this truly vital portrait.

Winner of the 2016 Governor General's Literary Award for Young People's Literature — Illustrated Books Tokyo lives in a small house between giant buildings with his family and his cat, Kevin. For years, highways and skyscrapers have been built up around the family’s house where once there were hills and trees. Will they ever experience the natural world again? One day, an old woman offers Tokyo seeds, telling him they will grow into whatever he wishes. Tokyo and his grandfather are astonished when the seeds grow into a forest so lush that it takes over the entire city overnight. Soon the whole city has gone wild, with animals roaming where cars once drove. But is this a problem to be surmounted, or a new way of living to be embraced? With Tokyo Digs a Garden, Jon-Erik Lappano and Kellen Hatanaka have created a thoughtful and inspiring fable of environmentalism and imagination. Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.1 With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details in a text. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.6 With prompting and support, name the author and illustrator of a story and define the role of each in telling the story. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.1.7 Use illustrations and details in a story to describe its characters, setting, or events.

A shape-shifter arrives at Tokyo harbour in human form, set to embark on an unstoppable rampage through the city’s train network… A young woman is accompanied home one night by a reclusive student, and finds herself lured into a flat full of eerie Egyptian artefacts… A man suspects his young wife’s obsession with picnicking every weekend in the city’s parks hides a darker motive… At first, Tokyo appears in these stories as it does to many outsiders: a city of bewildering scale, awe-inspiring modernity, peculiar rules, unknowable secrets and, to some extent, danger. Characters observe their fellow citizens from afar, hesitant to stray from their daily routines to engage with them. But Tokyo being the city it is, random encounters inevitably take place – a naïve book collector, mistaken for a French speaker, is drawn into a world he never knew existed; a woman seeking psychiatric help finds herself in a taxi with an older man wanting to share his own peculiar revelations; a depressed divorcee accepts an unexpected lunch invitation to try Thai food for the very first time… The result in each story is a small but crucial change in perspective, a sampling of the unexpected yet simple pleasure of other people’s company. As one character puts it, ‘The world is full of delicious things, you know.’

Tokyo is a city of complementary contrasts – a truly modern metropolis where futuristic architecture and cutting-edge technology stand shoulder-to-shoulder with ancient temples and centuries-old art and craft traditions. Your DK Eyewitness Top 10 travel guide ensures you’ll find your way around Tokyo with absolute ease. Our newly updated Top 10 travel guide breaks down the best of Tokyo into helpful lists of ten — from our own selected highlights to the best museums and art galleries, places to eat, shops and events. You'll discover: • Nine easy-to-follow itineraries, perfect for a day-trip, a weekend, or a week • Detailed Top 10 lists of Tokyo’s must-sees, including detailed breakdowns of the Imperial Palace Grounds, Senso-ji Temple, the Sumida River, the Edo-Tokyo Museum, Ueno Park, the Tokyo National Museum, Koishikawa Korakuen Garden, the Meiji Shrine, Yanaka and Odaiba Island • Tokyo’s most interesting areas, with the best places for shopping, going out, and sightseeing • Inspiration for different things to enjoy during your trip – including children’s activities, things to do for free and unmissable experiences off the beaten path • A free laminated pull-out map of Tokyo featuring a subway map, plus seven color neighborhood maps • Streetsmart advice: get ready, get around, and stay safe • A lightweight format perfect for your pocket or bag when you’re on the move DK Eyewitness Top 10s have been helping travellers to make the most of their breaks since 2002. Staying for longer and looking for a more comprehensive guide? Try our DK Eyewitness Tokyo or DK Eyewitness Japan.

This book examines heritage-led regeneration and decision-making processes in Tokyo’s urban centres of Nihonbashi and Marunouchi. Detailing some of the city’s most prominent and recent redevelopment projects, Jiewon Song recognizes key institutions and actors; their collective actions as placemakers; and how they project the authenticity of urban places in planning processes. Song argues that heritage-led regeneration tends to monopolize authenticity by weakening the visibility of other cultural and historic qualities in urban places. Authenticity consequently turns into a singular entity leading to the homogenization of urban places. As cities increasingly seek authenticity in the urban age, nation-states initiate top-down processes to achieve such ends, interweaving nationalism and national narratives into placemaking practices. In this fashion, Song challenges existing scholarship on urban conservation, global cities and the notion of authenticity.

From building blocks to city blocks, an eye-opening exploration of how children's playthings and physical surroundings affect their development. Parents obsess over their children's playdates, kindergarten curriculum, and every bump and bruise, but the toys, classrooms, playgrounds, and neighborhoods little ones engage with are just as important. These objects and spaces encode decades, even centuries of changing ideas about what makes for good child-rearing--and what does not. Do you choose wooden toys, or plastic, or, increasingly, digital? What do youngsters lose when seesaws are deemed too dangerous and slides are designed primarily for safety? How can the built environment help children cultivate self-reliance? In these debates, parents, educators, and kids themselves are often caught in the middle. Now, prominent design critic Alexandra Lange reveals the surprising histories behind the human-made elements of our children's pint-size landscape. Her fascinating investigation shows how the seemingly innocuous universe of stuff affects kids' behavior, values, and health, often in subtle ways. And she reveals how years of decisions by toymakers, architects, and urban planners have helped--and hindered--American youngsters' journeys toward independence. Seen through Lange's eyes, everything from the sandbox to the street becomes vibrant with buried meaning. The Design of Childhood will change the way you view your children's world--and your own.