BEST OF:
We wanted to make some quick shout-outs to each country with a "best of" list. Consensus is that Tokyo & surroundings is definitely the best overall trip... if you have the budget for it (Tokyo is among the top 3 most expensive cities in the world). But each city definitely left its mark, as we highlight below:
Spicy food: Shanghai. Need your sinuses cleared? Stop into any nook restaurant and point to something with red peppers on it. You'll get it. Just beware what you wish for, and make sure you have some Tsingdao on hand to wash it down.
Upscale food: Tokyo. With over 200,000 restaurants and the second-largest Michelin-starred selection in the world, you can get unparalleled dining experiences here if you're willing to cough up the Yen for it.
DIY dining: Seoul. Playing with your food is pretty much mandatory here, especially with Korean Barbeque, where you essentially take raw ingredients and put it all together yourself. Worth a try, even in the US.
Shopping: Shanghai. If you can stand the fairly irritating chatter of "Hello! Watch, bag! Hello!" you'll find just about anything in Shanghai, at rock-bottom prices... as long as you can haggle without mercy. If you like a challenge, haggling in China is like a boxing match, but you can find great souveniers, food, art, cheap clothing / tailoring, etc.
Livability: Seoul. Seoul lacks the smog and madness of Shanghai and the incredible density of Tokyo. Tree-filled and easy-going, it's a place you could probably stand to live in for a while.
Transit: Tokyo. Tokyo's privately-owned (by 3 separate companies) light railway/subway system is reasonably-priced, frequent, thorough, clean, on-time, and brilliantly efficient. You can get across-town in 20 minutes, reliably... as long as it's before midnight, when the whole thing shuts down fairly quickly.
Gardens: Tokyo. We'll mostly let the pictures do the talking here, but the Japanese definitely have a great flair (and obsession) for perfection in both design and care of their gardens.
Temples: Tokyo. Well, really Kamakura. The temples here, each unique, impart tranquility, peacefulness, and other cliches upon the viewer. Despite our plan to rush through them, we were compelled to slow down and take them in, and reflect a bit on life. They share the same intricacy as the gardens, and have mastered the art of materializing spirituality.
Big city buildings: Shanghai. Tokyo may have better mega-buildings in Shinjuku, but we never made it. Shanghai definitely has the most _creative_ set of mega-buildings we've seen, where photos suggest Tokyo has your normal (still impressive) fair of tall-and-glass. Shanghai's norm of creative architecture stands in a stark contrast to the Beijing standard of dullness and conformity, so it came as a bit of a pleasant surprise.
Entertainment: TIE between Seoul & Tokyo. We didn't partake in any real entertainment in Shanghai, so this one may not be fair. But between "Nanta Cookin'" and Sumo, it's hard to pick a favorite. Socks were definitely rocked.
"Flavor:" Shanghai. Shanghai's myriad smells (most of which interesting, many of which wonderful, a few quite horrifying), noise, grey market, and (hate to say it) poorer corners gives it the far-and-away win on having a really unique "flavor" to it that one doesn't get as much from the more Westernized and somewhat more sterilized cities of Seoul and Tokyo.
Service and People: Tokyo. We've spoken many times of the incredible people and service of Tokyo, and want to repeat it again here. We'd have been totally wrecked without the help of the Japanese people, and we could always depend on getting the help we needed just when we needed it. Everyone was polite and genuinely helpful.
Fashion: Tokyo. Fashion was high and mighty here--folks dressed both sharply and wildly, from excellent suits to odd costumes to the really knee-weakeningly beautiful dress of ladies that walked by.
Pretty ladies: Seoul. Korean ladies definitely win for pretty, hands-down, enough so that we just plain noticed them constantly, in a way that we didn't get as much in China or Japan.
Baragain travel: Shanghai. We were way under-budget in Shanghai, compared to at budget in Korea and wayyyyyy over budget in Japan. We ate well and traveled easily on the cheap, and definitely appreciated it.
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