Japan FAQS Tokyo IN JAPAN EVERYTHING RUNS ON TIME. Trains. Clocks. Bowels. Even typhoons. Departing Narita as a major storm blows in snarling traffic and toppling telegraph poles, the lady at the check-in counter is unruffled. “Typhoon-o come 5-o-clock-o. Your flight-o depart 4.30pm. No problem-o.” Outside people are horizontal in the howling wind. People run on time too, screaming in all directions, when Godzilla turns up. If this happens to you, run screaming for the nearest tidal wave. It’s the Japanese way. Or so the movies have it. All idle guff of course. In reality people are running for trains. Including Godzilla. Things here are different. A sign in a toilet at a posh Tokyo business hotel read: “Do not splash water or detergent on the product. This may cause fire or trouble.” If you don’t want a fire, and prefer your bottom the way God intended – beware. Then there are those peanuts whose wrapper states: “Not to be used for the other purpose”. Quite right. Japan is fraught with peril. So on to Tokyo shopping romp, offbeat fun, and a few seedy dives. It can get wild. Peel your eyebrows off the ceiling at “maid cafés” in Akihabara where waitresses dress to serve and please, “butler cafés”, theme bars where staff are kitted out as doctors, or nurses, or gawp at students selling underwear to delighted old codgers in Shinjuku. Ginza and Yurakucho with their sizzling neon and stratospheric prices are great fun and the epicentre of any Tokyo shopping expedition. Start with window browsing and an occasional brave foray inside. The teeming epicentre of Ginza is at the intersection of Chuo-dori and Harumi-dori. Come up for air at the Mitsukoshi department store and gawp at amazing window displays at Waco (an oldies hangout). In this vicinity are Matsuzakaya, the Jena bookstore, Hankyu, Mikimoto, Seibu, the Sony Building, Sukiya Camera (specialising in Nikons), the Nissan showroom and the humungous come-in-and-play Apple Store complete with a giant rotating apple emblem on the roof. Between Mitsukoshi and the Hankyu department store, along Harumi-dori, you’ll find a rash of side streets bristling with designer-ware cheek-by-jowl with simple discount stores. This is the rarefied preserve of designer brands like Dior, Longchamp, Giorgio Armani, Hermes (in a stunning mod building), Gucci, Dolce & Gabbana, Breitling, Chanel, Ermenegildo Zegna, St John, Shanghai Tang, Salvatore Ferragamo, Tag Heuer, Burberry, and COACH. The large, easy-to-spot no-brand Muji store (10am-9pm, www.muji.net) in Yurakucho is a wonderful alternative to hysterical spend. It has a decent café too. Muji stocks a delightful array of “no-brand” clothes and household goods all the more refreshing for their lack of mindless similarity to thousands of other so-called brands. Muji prices are generally affordable.    One of the more interesting spots for silk ties and formal shirts in Ginza is the specialist Teijin Men’s Shop (www.tjnaso.co.jp), where prices start at around Y13,000 for a splash of colour around the nexk and from Y11,000 up for cotton shirts. Teijin also has, a short stroll from here, an oversize items “sports” shop. For a more sober wind-down pop out at Tokyo Station and head for the New Marunouchi Building and the Maruzen mega-bookstore (tel: 5288-8881). The fourth floor is devoted to foreign publications and frazzled foreigners rehearsing their konichi-was. Maruzen is an established bookstore whose antecedents date back to 1869. If paying by credit card do not be alarmed if a sales girl enquires, “One? One…?” She’s asking if you wish to pay in one or more instalments. Just show one finger (the right one) and smile. Omote-sando is sleek wall-to-wall Dior, Armani, Burberry, Max Mara, Hanae Mori, Kenzo and more. The pride of the district is the new Omote Sando Hills (www.omotesandohills.com) development, a funky reconverted old building with an atrium and intriguing ramp-style angled walk-up to all floors without steps with the result everything appears to be tilting. You are always walking either up, or down. There is no specific floor as each floor is essentially leading up gently to the next. Omote Sando Hills shopping will take you past the likes of Dunhill, Roger Dubuis, Harry Winston (jewellers), Gieves & Hawkes, Dolce & Gabbana, Han Ahn Soon, Tsuru, Ann Demeulemeester and so on. There are also a number of eateries and ice-cream parlours should the feet give out. And yes, there are escalators and lifts. This is the high end of Tokyo shopping where elegantly draped fashionistas prowl, six-inch platforms are the norm, and women click about on stilettos that could skewer a marlin. But neighbouring Harajuku offers a rare treat – the five-storey Kiddyland, bursting with oddities, stuffed character toys, games and mad inventions. This is a super children’s shop and fun for parents too. Everything from horrifying masks to electronic games, toys, novelties and giant stuffed “Totoros”. Akihabara is highly rated for its electronics. If it beeps, buzzes or pings you’ll find it at LABI Akihabara  or Laox . Get off at Akihabara Station and look for the “Akihabara Electric Town” exit. The shops start right at the station. Bic Camera can be found in Yurakucho (http://www.biccamera.co.jp/shoplist/index_english.html), Shinjuku and Ikebukuro, while Yodobashi Camera  is in Shinjuku with a huge array of discount cameras. The more adventurous could venture into Japan Sword, Toranomon Station, Sakura-dori, www.japansword.co.jp), for reproductions ranging from Y18,000 to Y70,000 or more for prized tameshi-giri blades that have drawn human blood, and I don’t mean while shaving. And the less intrepid can play with dolls at Yoshitoku, Asakusabashi), an outfit that has been making pieces for the royal family for generations. Or simply dip into pearls at the Tasaki Shinju Pearl Gallery (Tameikesanno Station Exit 9). However, the big question for those of us not covered by a Lose-One-Limb-Three-Digits-And-All-Of-Your-Mind insurance plan is where to have fun in Tokyo without actually losing an arm and a leg. For the best prices and eye-popping action, head to Shinjuku and its racy Kabukicho district pulsing with lights, discount “100 Yen Shops” (where everything is priced at Y100 or less) and burly black touts sporting American accents. The items for sale at 100 Yen Shops are unexceptional but how many people can tell their friends they picked up a Hello Kitty notepad for less than US$1? A large outdoor video screen marks the beginning of Kabukicho. From here on, you’re on your own. Browse books at Kinokuniya ( www.kinokuniya.com), or pop by a 24-hour Don Quixote discount store and its mind-boggling array of everything from inspired gadgets to no-I-don’t-really-need-a-George-Bush-doll kind of stuff. Enter at your peril and rummage about the stalls that seem to follow no particular order. Any Tokyo guide would be crammed with amazing things you can do. Visitors in town over a Saturday can check out the interesting weekend flea market around the Shibuya Meiji Shrine. Not far from here, Yoyogi Park is worth a stroll as well though the Sunday synchronised dance-and-rock buzz is gone with residents voting out the surging decibels. Shibuya is awash with restaurants and bars. If you need a place to hang out because the weather’s too cold, or hot, or wet, waltz into Mark City, a mega-department-store with restaurants on the fourth level. And for antique collectors, Harajuku’s Fuji Tori (www.fuji-torii.com) is a popular prowl. If you're able to rise at crack of dawn, try a walkabout in the Tsukiji Market (there's a stop on the Toei Oedo Line) at 5am or earlier. The clamorous bidding area where giant tuna and exotic catch are hauled on the scales is not for everyone but tourists can still sniff the action in other open zones. The National Children’s Castle (www.kodomono-shiro.or.jp/english) may sound like something out of Harry Potter but is, in reality, just another office block. Inside it is a different story altogether. The place has several floors devoted to kids from toddlers up with play netting, mini-pool tables, swimming pool and assorted distractions. The “castle” is between Shibuya Station and Omote-sando Station. There is a modest entrance fee. Toddlers are free. Ogling at buildings is another excellent, no-cost, pastime and the Dentsu tower, all gleaming minimalist grey metal, sheer glass walls and vertiginous lifts, is breathtaking. For fun pop into the basement Advertising Museum for some quirky displays. Other items at the top of your quick to-do Tokyo list might include, a temple tour of the stately Senso-ji Temple in Asakusa, a visit to the Imperial Palace, a stroll through Ueno Garden, especially during the cherry blossom season in late March, or an evening at the Kabuki-Za theatre, where ponderous plays run for hours, unravelling in mysterious slow-mo. Now that your wife is shopped out and your bank manager is hollering on the line, pack her off to a Kabuki show. Collect her three days later at interval. The kids will, of course, be camped at Tokyo Disneyland, in Maihama, a 20-minute train ride from Tokyo Station on the JR Keiyo Line. For another stage show with a twist, venture to the Takarazuka Theatre near the Imperial Hotel where an all-woman cast performs Japanese musicals.