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Asakusa
Asakusa is the best place in Japan. In fact, it could be the best place in the world. Anyone who thinks otherwise needs to be stuffed full of pickled plums.
As well as the obvious appeal of Sensouji Temple and the souvenir shops of Nakamise-dori, Asakusa is packed with bizarre less talked about attractions. Asakusa Jinta, surely the 21st century’s only surviving burlesque bar (real burlesque, not the modern strip show variety), thrives here. The restaurants serving eels in Asakusa are not musty relics of old Japan; they are popular and packed with hungry punters.
Asakusa is famed for its plastic food models. Plastic food I tell you. Well I suppose if eel is the only other option, many people might opt for plastic.
In many parts of Japan, not wearing a suit turns you into an outsider. In parts of Asakusa not looking as if you have just got out of bed and dressed in the pitch black marks you out as an intruder. The bizarre is so normal it is almost universal. Why bother putting on shoes and socks when you can just wander around in your slippers?
The screaming contempt much of Asakusa has for contemporary fashion is its greatest charm. Asakusa keeps thing simple, it does not pretend to be what it is not. An award-winning French architect designed a building at the edge of Asakusa with a golden sculpture on top pretentiously calling it the building of the Golden Flame. Asakusans, giving a more accurate appraisal of its appearance, just call it the turd building.
No-one has a monopoly on weirdness in Asakusa. The competition is too intense. So if you are foreign or weird, or like me, foreign and weird, and you want to fit in, Asakusa is the ideal destination.