This Should Be Enough Reason to Hightail It to Tokyo

October 13, 2011 at 2:05 PM | by JetSetCD | Comments (0)

Everyone and their moms are talking about Japan's big plan to give away 10,000 roundtrip plane tickets to international tourists willing to visit (and blog and tweet) about Tokyo. It hasn't been approved yet, but that doesn't mean anxious travelers around the world are going to stop daydreaming about cherry blossoms, gadgets, cosplay and, of course, fresh sushi.

We're disappointed that Japan needs to resort to nearly dragging tourists to visit when there's so many reasons to skip a vacay in Mexico or the Caribbean and hightail it instead to the Land of the Rising Sun. Our favorite impetus to up and go? It's got to be the food, specifically the stand-up sushi counters found around the city, but most easily located in Shibuya.

These counters are like small sushi bars sans chairs, and they cater to busy salarymen and curious visitors. Walk in and up to a spot, tell the sushi chef (who's about two feet directly in front of you) what you want, and he'll lay out a leaf "placemat" and start delivering your order as fast as his hands can form the perfect pieces. Gorging at a stand-up sushi joint and downing all the green tea you can handle averages $11-$15, and we're talking fresh sushi.

Not a big fan of sushi? Instead of calling you weird, we'll just note that oftentimes the stand-up sushi bars will also offer tempura, rice bowls and they definitely have miso soup. Scheduling conflicts have kept us away from our beloved Tokyo sushi bars for nearly a year, but it's only a matter of time before we're right back in there, and we'll happily show you how to break your o-hashi and add o-shoyu without offending the chef. Deal?

[Photo: Jaunted]

Jaunted

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