| This almost 500-page book will give heart to potential visitors to Tokyo who are afraid that because Tokyo is so expensive, they will not be able to afford to indulge themselves in the city's everyday pleasures. Susan Pompian, one of nature's obsessives, is the perfect person to write a book like this. She has uncovered lots of larky things to do, like paying a (free) visit to the Cigarette Lighter Museum and to the Rubber Baseball Museum, that few reasonable people would be able to conceive of, much less ferret out. She tells you where you can get toys repaired for free and where you can pick up a free pet. She lays out the procedure for arranging a visit to the Imperial Palace, although for Tokyoites, who always have a dozen urgent things to do, visiting the seat of empire is akin to a New Yorker visiting the Empire State Building. They somehow never get around to it.
But couched the way it is, the book is reassuring to people a little apprehensive about the city - its cost, its bewildering street signs, its maniacally irregular layout. The first chapter called "Help!" is where you come across an insert of fine maps with the suggested things to do clearly marked, are taken by the hand through the city's miraculously efficient transportation system, and learn that you can sign up for a free three-hour course in what to do in case of an earthquake.
But the thrust of the book is not so much the listing of free things to do - in fact many of the things listed are not free at all - but a celebration of the sheer diversity of things to do if you other wise have nothing particular in mind. You can visit the Shinseido Cosmetic Garden in Harajuku and completely make yourself over, experimenting all you want with Shinseido products with no sales person in sight. You can take a free class in Japanese classical dance and attend a free poetry workshop. You can borrow a bicycle and cycle along the Tama River, watch sumo wrestlers beat each other up, and attend a solemn lecture at the Asiatic Society of Japan (contribution suggested). The author has visited each of the photo exhibitions mounted by Japanese camera makers - the Ginza Canon Salon, the Ginza Nikon Salon, the Kyocera Contax Salon, the Nikon Mini Gallery, the Konica Plaza, the Minolta Photo Space, the Pentax Forum, and the Olympus Plaza - and written them all up. She tells you which bookstores are best for browsing - she lists 15 - and devotes fifty pages to Tokyo's churches, temples, and shrines. Whew!
There is a knowledgeable chapter on antique shops and flea markets, with notes on museum shops and places to buy Japanese crafts, and a suggestion that you should call the Irish Embassy to find out what's scheduled for St. Patrick's Day. The author has visited the Salvation Army Bazaar on your behalf and tracked down a Museum of Dry Cleaning and Laundry, which she discovered has an 8,000-volume reference library. She has found out that you can use the meeting room at the Rice Information Showroom any time you want, for free.
Of course, Ms. Pompian, for all her heroic researches, has not included everything. As far as I can see, there is no mention of the dozens of antique shops to the north of Ogikubo station or of the wonderful Edo-Tokyo Tatemono-en (otherwise known as the Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum) in Musashi Koganei, presumably because it charges 300 yen to enter, although I'm not absolutely sure they are not mentioned because this book so overflowing with info has no index.
Reviewed
by Alex Urbansky
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