5 Days in Tokyo

Start at the Kaminarimon, the "Thunder Gate", with its giant red lantern and the two guardian gods of thunder and wind on either side. A gate has stood here since 942, it has been destroyed several times, and the current one dates to 1960. Beyond it runs Nakamise Street, a shopping lane that leads to the temple and has had shops since 1685.

It is touristy and knows it, but it works at 8 or 9 am, when the stalls are just opening. Buy a snack, skip the plastic samurai swords, and look up: on a clear day the top of Tokyo Skytree, 634 meters tall and open since 2012, sticks out over the roofs.

Senso-ji is Tokyo's oldest temple and, with more than 30 million visitors a year, one of the busiest religious sites on earth. The legend says that in 628 two brothers fishing in the Sumida River pulled up a small golden statue of Kannon, the bodhisattva of compassion, and a temple was built around it. The statue is still inside, and nobody has ever seen it: it is never shown to the public.

The current buildings are all postwar. The temple was destroyed in the firebombing of 10 March 1945, and the main hall was rebuilt in the 1950s. The grounds never close, but the main hall opens at 6:30 am from October to March (6 am the rest of the year) and closes at 5 pm.

Asakusa is the place for tempura, the batter-fried shrimp and vegetables that started out as Edo street food. Daikokuya has served it since 1887, a few minutes from the temple, and its signature is tendon, a bowl of rice topped with fried seafood and vegetables in a dark sweet-salty sauce, from about 1,500 yen.

Expect a queue at lunch, so eat early or after 2 pm. If the line is silly, Sansada near the Kaminarimon has been frying tempura since 1837.

Take the Ginza line a few stops to Ueno and walk into the park. The Tokyo National Museum is the oldest national museum in Japan and the largest art museum, with around 120,000 objects, 89 of them designated National Treasures. You can't see it all, so don't try.

Go straight to the Honkan, the main Japanese Gallery, with its samurai swords, lacquer, Buddhist sculpture, kimono and screen paintings, and then to the Toyokan for Asian art if you have time (it closes for maintenance from 30 November to 31 December 2026). The museum is closed on Mondays. It opens 9:30 am to 5 pm, with late opening until 8 pm on Fridays and Saturdays, and a few rooms close for maintenance, so check before you plan around one.

Ueno Park was one of Japan's first public parks, opened in 1873 on land that belonged to the Kan'ei-ji temple. That temple was built in 1625 in the "demon gate", the unlucky northeast direction from Edo Castle, to guard the shogun. Most of it burned in the Battle of Ueno in 1868, and a five-story pagoda from 1639 survives.

Walk down to Shinobazu Pond, full of lotus leaves and waterfowl, with a small shrine to the goddess Benzaiten on an island in the middle. The National Museum of Nature and Science nearby keeps the stuffed body of Hachiko, the faithful dog you'll meet at Shibuya station tomorrow.

Ameyoko, short for Ameya-Yokocho, is the open-air market along the railway tracks beside Ueno station, with more than 250 shops of food, clothing and bargain goods. It started as a black market after the war, and nobody quite agrees on the name: it either comes from the candy shops (ame) that sold sweets when sugar was scarce, or from "America", where much of the army-surplus stock came from.

It is loud and cramped, and that is the point. Eat standing up, with the owners calling prices to the crowd. Go in the afternoon, before the stalls begin to close.

Two stops on the Yamanote Line from Ueno is Akihabara, "Electric Town". It got that nickname right after the war, when it was a black market for radio parts and household electronics, and it grew into the world capital of anime, manga, games and gadgets. The name itself comes from a fire-controlling shrine built after an 1869 fire.

Come after dark, when the neon is on. Multi-story arcades such as Taito Station and GiGO are the real draw. The maid cafes are a staple of the district, but treat them as a curiosity rather than a meal. If you buy electronics to take home, shop at stores with an overseas section, since Japanese mains power runs at 100 volts.

Walk from Harajuku station through a huge wooden torii and onto a gravel path through the forest. Meiji Jingu is a Shinto shrine to Emperor Meiji, who died in 1912, and his wife Empress Shoken. It was dedicated on 3 November 1920, which is why that date, the emperor's birthday, is still a public holiday. The original buildings burned in the 1945 air raids, and the current ones were completed in 1958 with public donations.

The forest around it is the real surprise: about 120,000 trees of 365 species, donated from all over Japan when the shrine was founded. Look for the stacked sake barrels, and, around 15 November, children in kimono for Shichi-Go-San, the festival when families take three-, five- and seven-year-olds to a shrine to be blessed.

Cross the road from the shrine and you're on Takeshita Street, the narrow lane that is Japan's youth-fashion runway. In the 1980s it was known for teenage street-dance groups called takenoko-zoku, and ever since it has been where teenagers try out the next look.

It is packed with shops for clothes, accessories and sweets, and very crowded on weekends. Take one lap for the people-watching, then turn onto the backstreets of Ura-Harajuku, where the independent boutiques and cafes are quieter. For a green break, Yoyogi Park is next door.

Omotesando is the broad, tree-lined avenue that was widened in 1919 as the formal approach to the Meiji shrine, and the contrast with Takeshita Street is the point. It is Tokyo's boulevard of high-end shops, with flagship stores in buildings worth looking at as much as the clothes.

Omotesando Hills, opened in 2006 where the old Dojunkai apartment blocks stood, is the landmark to look at. Walk downhill to Shibuya, stopping for coffee in a backstreet cafe. This is a walk, not a mission.

Shibuya Crossing opened in 1973 and is described as the world's busiest pedestrian crossing, with 1,000 to 2,000 people crossing during a single green light. When the lights turn, every direction goes at once, and nobody collides. Watch it once from above and once from inside.

Tucked into a corner of the plaza outside the station is the bronze of Hachiko, the Akita dog who waited at Shibuya for his owner, a university professor, every evening for almost ten years after the man died in 1925. The statue was unveiled in 1934, melted down in the war, and the one you see now dates to 1948. It's still the meeting point, and its paws and nose are shiny from being touched.

Shibuya Sky is the open-air rooftop of Shibuya Scramble Square, a skyscraper that is about 230 meters tall and opened on 1 November 2019. From the top you see the crossing as a tiny pattern of black dots, with the Tokyo Tower and on a clear day Mount Fuji beyond. It's the best rooftop in the city for the price.

Book a sunset slot. In November the sun goes down around 4:30 pm, so aim to be at the top by 4 pm and stay until the lights come on. The rooftop can close in strong wind or rain, but the indoor galleries stay open.

Nonbei Yokocho, "drinker alley", is a narrow lane that runs along the east side of the Yamanote tracks just north of the station, a few minutes from the scramble crossing and a world away from it. It was formed in 1955, it has survived decades of redevelopment around it, and a few of its shops have been there since the start. It is packed with traditional yakitori taverns and some extremely tiny modern bars.

This is the gentle introduction to Japan's small-bar culture before you try Golden Gai tomorrow. Choose a spot where there's a menu you can read or someone waving you in, order a drink and a few skewers, and stay for the first round. Don't take photos of other customers, and don't expect to stay all night: the point is a drink or two.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, known as Tocho, is the city hall, a 48-story twin-tower by the architect Kenzo Tange. It was meant to resemble an integrated circuit and a Gothic cathedral at the same time, and it's the tallest city hall in the world.

Its two observation decks on the 45th floor, 202 meters up, are free, and they give the best no-cost view in Tokyo. On a clear day you can see Mount Fuji. Expect a short queue for the lift. The tourist information center on the first floor has maps and English-speaking staff.

Fuunji, a short walk from Shinjuku station, is one of Tokyo's best-known tsukemen shops, and a queue here has become a Shinjuku ritual. Tsukemen is ramen taken apart: the noodles come cold on a plate, and you dip them into a thick, hot, fish-and-pork broth that's almost a gravy.

Expect a queue outside at lunch and dinner, and expect it to move faster than it looks. Order the standard bowl, and when the noodles are done, ask for soup-wari, a splash of hot stock to thin the leftover dip so you can drink it. It is closed on Sundays and holidays, and it shuts when it sells out.

Walk 20 minutes east, or ride one stop, to Shinjuku Gyoen, a large garden on land that Tokugawa Ieyasu gave to the Naito family in 1590 for their Edo residence. The family finished the garden in 1772, the imperial household took it over, and it became a national garden that anyone can visit.

In the first half of November the Japanese Traditional Garden hosts a chrysanthemum exhibition, and the garden stays open on Mondays too. The leaves come later: maples and ginkgos turn from about mid-November into early December. It is open from 9 am to 4:30 pm, with last entry at 4 pm, and normally closed on Mondays.

Omoide Yokocho, "Memory Lane", is a pair of smoky alleys by the railway tracks lined with tiny yakitori grills and bars. It started as a black market in the late 1940s, when vendors sold whatever food and drink they could get in the rubble, and the stalls hardened into permanent eateries. It has a rude nickname that foreign guidebooks love, usually explained by the lack of public toilets in its early days.

Today it is crowded with visitors, which doesn't spoil it: it is still a row of counters where chicken, offal and vegetables get grilled over charcoal and handed across with a beer. Pick a stall with a free seat, order a few skewers and a drink, and expect to share elbow space.

Kabukicho is Tokyo's best-known entertainment district, called the "Sleepless Town". The name comes from a plan in the late 1940s to build a kabuki theater here. The theater never happened, but the name stuck, and it's now a grid of host and hostess clubs, love hotels, game arcades, karaoke towers and restaurants.

It is fine to walk through in the evening if you ignore anyone on the street who pulls you towards a bar and skip places without a price list. The neon is the attraction, not the clubs, and it looks best after dark.

Golden Gai is a network of six narrow alleys, connected by passages barely wide enough for one person, and more than 200 tiny shanty-style bars, clubs and eateries squeezed in. Most seat only a handful of people, and many have a theme: film, jazz, punk, or just one owner's taste.

Treat it as an evening of two or three drinks in different bars, not a night in one. Bars add a cover charge, and some turn away strangers, so look for an English sign or a price list on the door. The alleys are private roads, and photography in them is not allowed without permission.

The bright red Shinkyo Bridge crosses the Daiya River and marks the border between the town and the sacred area. In feudal times only the shogun was allowed to cross it. Today you can admire it from the road beside it, with the traffic rumbling past, or pay a few hundred yen to walk across when it is open. It is one of the best-known images of Nikko.

From the stations it's about 2 km to the shrines, a 30-minute walk up the main street or a short bus ride.

Nikko Toshogu is the mausoleum shrine of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the founder of the shogunate, and it's the most extravagant temple complex in Japan. It was first built in 1617, the year after he died, and enlarged by his grandson Iemitsu into the glittering thing you see now, crammed with gold leaf, lacquer and carvings of birds, flowers, dragons and animals.

The highlights are in a line. The Yomeimon gate, nicknamed the "sundown gate" because you could look at it until sundown without tiring of it. The carving of the three wise monkeys (see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil) on the sacred stable. The small carved Sleeping Cat, attributed to Hidari Jingoro, near the inner gate. And the hundreds of stone steps that climb through the cedar forest to Ieyasu's tomb.

Nikko's specialty is yuba, the delicate skin that forms on top of heated soy milk and is lifted off in sheets. It comes rolled, fried, simmered in broth or served like sashimi, and the town sells it as a "monk's diet" meal.

Cafe Restaurant Bell, 150 meters from the entrance to the shrine area, serves yuba in various forms, and also ramen and curry for anyone who wants an easier lunch. Its lunch service has been listed as ending at 3 pm, so eat early.

Taiyuinbyo, a ten-minute walk away on a shaded path, is the mausoleum of Iemitsu, the third shogun and the man behind Toshogu's splendor, and it's smaller, quieter and, to many people, more beautiful than Toshogu. The tomb itself is not open to the public, and the hall is best seen from outside.

Next door, Rinno-ji is the main temple of the area, founded in the 8th century by the monk Shodo Shonin, who brought Buddhism to Nikko. Its Sanbutsudo hall holds three large Buddha figures. Futarasan Shrine, dedicated to the mountain gods of Nikko, stands just west of Toshogu on the site it moved to in 1617.

Leave the crowds behind and walk along the Daiya River from Shinkyo bridge. Within 30 minutes, along a quiet residential road, you reach Kanmangafuchi, a rocky gorge with the river rushing through it and a long line of stone jizo statues, the protector figures of travelers and children, along the path above the water. Some wear red bibs and little hats, and some are crumbling with age.

A local legend says the statues change places from time to time, so nobody counts them in the same order twice. It's one of the loveliest quiet walks in Nikko, particularly with the leaves turning. Catch a train back before 6 pm so you're in Tokyo for dinner.

Tsukiji Market opened in 1935 to replace the old Nihonbashi fish market that the 1923 earthquake destroyed. The wholesale market, with its famous tuna auction, moved to Toyosu in October 2018. The inner market is gone, but the outer market, the shops and restaurants along the lanes, stayed, and it is as busy as ever.

Go early and eat as you walk: sushi or a kaisendon seafood bowl at a counter, grilled skewers, and tamagoyaki, the sweet rolled omelet that is a Tsukiji specialty. Tsukiji Yamacho sells it on a stick. Shops close by 2 pm, and many are shut on Sundays and some Wednesdays, so check the calendar on the market's site.

Hamarikyu Gardens is a short walk from Tsukiji. It was a villa of the Tokugawa family in the 17th century, and it's a landscaped garden at the mouth of the Sumida River with a tidal pond, Shioiri-no-ike, that rises and falls with the water of Tokyo Bay. It opened to the public in 1946.

In the middle of the pond is the Nakajima no Ochaya teahouse, reached by two bridges, where you take off your shoes, sit on tatami and drink a bowl of matcha with a Japanese sweet. It is the easiest and most scenic way to try the green tea.

Ginza takes its name from a silver mint established here in 1612, and it was rebuilt as a "model of modernization" after a fire in 1872, with brick buildings and wide streets connecting Shimbashi to the foreign concession at Tsukiji. It is now Tokyo's most expensive shopping district, with department stores such as Mitsukoshi and Matsuya, flagship stores and the Wako building on the Ginza 4-chome crossing.

You don't need to buy anything. Browse the department-store food halls, look at the Wako clock tower, and, if the program suits you, visit the Kabuki-za theater. Kabuki is long, so ask at the box office whether single-act tickets are sold on the day.

Tokyo Station opened in 1914 with a red-brick facade by the architect Tatsuno Kingo, built to celebrate Japan's victory in the Russo-Japanese war. The 1945 bombing left it with two stories instead of three and plain roofs, and a five-year renovation completed in October 2012 gave it back its original look. Walk out of the Marunouchi side and look back at it from the plaza, with the palace grounds across the avenue.

The Imperial Palace stands on the site of Edo Castle, the shoguns' castle, and the East Gardens are the part of it that anyone can enter. The castle's keep, a five-story tower 51 meters tall that was the highest in Japan, burned down in the great Meireki fire of 1657 and was never rebuilt. The stone base is still there, and the walls, moats and gates hold the sense of the old scale.

Walk up to the base of the keep for the view over the lawns, then explore the gates and the old guard houses. After the crowds elsewhere, the wide space and low sky are the point. The palace itself, where the emperor lives, is closed to the public except on guided tours that need an application.

teamLab Planets in Toyosu is a digital-art museum you walk through barefoot. Rooms are filled with knee-deep water, mirrors, projected flowers and flowing light, and visitors become part of the artwork.

Book a timed ticket as far ahead as you can, since prices change with demand, and wear shorts or roll your trousers up. The museum's own site gives its run as lasting until the end of 2027, so go this trip rather than assuming a next one. Odaiba, the artificial island nearby, is another half-day for a later visit.