It's not surprising, then, that I should have a case of sticker shock when my travel agent tried to book me into a hotel for 2 nights for the "cheap" rate of $US650.   What the travel agent probably didn't realize was that I fully intended (and succeeded) in spending less than this amount during my entire 2 week trip, mostly by staying in backpackers' facilities.   For my first night in Japan, however, I made a special effort to experience a style of accomodation which you're only likely to find here - a "capseru hoteru" or "capsule hotel".   These are more like coffin hotels, because your "room" consists of a horizontal plastic box about 6 feet long, 2 feet wide and 2 feet high, complete with television and radio!

    Tokyo is a fairly attractive city, and its excellent subway system makes it quite easy to navigate around.   It has a number of large and pleasant parks, as well as a very tacky tower which I declined to visit.   Many tourists put the Imperial Palace at the top of their list of "must see" sights, and it certainly is worthwhile to walk around the massive moats and walls, and visit the pleasant gardens.   Other possibilities are some of the shopping districts, like Akihabara, which is famous for consumer electronics.

    Beyond the standard tourist sights of Tokyo, I went to the trouble of tracking down a war museum called the Yushukan, which is next door to the buddhist Yasukuni-jinja shrine, which is extremely notorious throughout Asia because of its role as a commemorative center for all of Japan's war dead - including war criminals like prime minister Tojo.   Sure enough, the museum has exhibits such as the first locomotive to traverse the Thailand to Burma railway, commemorated in the movie Bridge on the River Kwai.   Even more stunning to outsiders is the emphasis given to kamikaze attacks, including a kamikaze submarine and an Ohka rocket-propelled flying bomb which was intended to be flown by its pilot into an enemy warship.