Japan at night

I was just going over my itinerary (again! I finished it waaaay too early and now spend a lot of time tweaking it) and by and large I'm aiming to get back to my hotel around 7.30pm each night, sometime after the rush hour has finished. I'd hope to catch dinner close to my hotel and maybe check out a few of the local watering holes, but is there anything I should definitely check out at nighttime? Is there any landmark or sight or even area that's a lot better in the dark than in the daytime? I guess most of the observation towers are better at night, and I've heard good things about Ginza at night, but is there anything else?

I'll be staying in Osaka, Kyoto, Hiroshima and of course Tokyo.

What is your age range and budget? Ginza is fabulous at night, but very expensive, or at least, Ginza's charm is in it's luxurious bars.

If you're staying near Ginza, a much more "watering hole" area would be either Shinbashi where all the yakitori bars are, or Tsukishima where they have the Monja Street.

Btw, observation towers aren't necessarily "better" at night. They're just different depending on the hour. When I travel, wherever I go, I prefer to visit observation towers right before sunset and enjoy both the daylight and night view.

Hmmmm..... 7:30pm, after rush hour??

In Tokyo, I think that the "rush" is any time between about 5:30pm and about 8:00-8:30pm.

Really, til 830pm every night? Thats a loooong hour :)

Uco, I'll be staying around Shinagawa, probably, but what I'm trying to figure out is on the day when I'm in say, Ginza, rather than coming back to the hotel at 7.30, it would be good to know that there's something interesting and night 'specific' to hang around there for another few hours.

Good idea on the 'dusk' timeframe for the observation towers, though.

On Fri & Sat, Roppongi doesn't begin to get lively until 9 or 10 pm. Kabukicho starts getting lively any night from about 9 p.m. Close to Ginza, the yakitori places under and next to the Yamanote line starts to get crowded after work about 6 p.m. or so. Odaiba has a whole different atmosphere after the sun goes down. Same with Minato Mirai in Yokohama. Lots of Irish Pubs and jazz joints around Tokyo are full of activity from about 7pm. The last trains run around midnight so that's when the night activities at most places die down.