Tokyo

Tokyo is one of the biggest cities on earth and one of the easiest to visit: safe, clean, punctual and built around its trains. It is also many cities in one, from the temple lanes of Asakusa and the forest around Meiji Jingu to the neon of Shinjuku and the crowds of Shibuya, with some of the best food in the world at every price, from a six-seat counter to a department store food hall.

This guide covers when to go, where to stay, what to see, a four-day route built from real opening hours and walking times, a walk through Yanaka, a day in Kamakura, what to eat, and the history, art and customs that make the city make sense.

1. 01

   Sensō-ji and Asakusa

   Tokyo’s oldest temple was founded, the story goes, in 628, after two fishermen pulled a small golden statue of Kannon out of the Sumida River. Walk in under the giant red lantern of the Kaminarimon gate and down Nakamise, a lane of snack and souvenir stalls, to the main hall and the five-story pagoda. Almost all of it was rebuilt after the bombing of 1945.

   The grounds never close. Come early in the morning, or after dark, when the stalls are shut and the buildings are lit.

   Photo: Christophe95, CC BY-SA 4.0
2. 02

   Meiji Jingu

   A Shinto shrine to Emperor Meiji and Empress Shōken, opened in 1920 in a forest planted for it: nearly 100,000 trees were given from all over Japan and planted by volunteers. The walk in, on wide gravel paths under great wooden torii, is as much the point as the shrine itself.

   Open from sunrise to sunset. Harajuku’s Takeshita Street is just outside the south entrance, and Yoyogi Park is next door.

   Photo: Asanagi, CC0
3. 03

   The Imperial Palace and East Gardens

   The emperor lives on the site of Edo Castle, seat of the Tokugawa shoguns for more than 250 years. From the plaza you see the stone bridge and the Fushimi turret across the moat, and in the East Gardens, the castle’s old inner citadel, you can climb the great stone base of a keep that burned in 1657.

   The East Gardens are free and close on Mondays and Fridays. Free guided tours of the inner palace grounds run from Tuesday to Saturday; book online or join the line on the day.

   Photo: Bernard Spragg. NZ from Christchurch, New Zealand, Public domain
4. 04

   Shibuya Crossing

   When the lights stop the cars, crowds step off the curbs on every side at once and cross in every direction, and a moment later the road is empty again. Watch from above, then find Hachikō, the bronze of the faithful dog who met the train at this station for almost ten years after his master died.

   Shibuya Sky, the open-air rooftop on Shibuya Scramble Square, sells timed tickets; the sunset slots go first.

   Photo: Dick Thomas Johnson from Tokyo, Japan, CC BY 2.0
5. 05

   Ueno Park and the Tokyo National Museum

   The park was once the grounds of Kan’ei-ji, the Tokugawa family temple, and has been the city’s museum quarter since the late 19th century. The Tokyo National Museum, founded in 1872, is Japan’s oldest national museum and its largest art museum: swords, armor, screens, kimono and Buddhist sculpture, with national treasures shown in rotation.

   Closed on Mondays. At the back, the Gallery of Hōryū-ji Treasures, a quiet modern building by Yoshio Taniguchi, is often almost empty.

   Photo: Wiiii, CC BY-SA 3.0
6. 06

   Tsukiji Outer Market

   The wholesale fish market moved to Toyosu in 2018, but the outer market stayed: narrow lanes of shops and stalls selling knives, tea, dried fish and sweet rolled omelet on a stick, with sushi counters open from early morning.

   Go early, from about 8am: most shops close by 2pm, and many take Sundays, public holidays and some Wednesdays off. The tuna auction can be watched at Toyosu Market from a public gallery, from about 5:30am.

   Photo: Aw1805, CC BY-SA 3.0
7. 07

   Shinjuku by night

   Start at Omoide Yokocho, a row of smoky yakitori counters beside the tracks by the west exit, then cross under the railway to Golden Gai, six narrow lanes of some 200 tiny bars, many with room for fewer than ten. For the view, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building has free observation decks 202 meters up.

   Many Golden Gai bars charge a seat fee, often posted on the door. The south observation deck stays open until 10pm.

   Photo: Alexkom000, CC BY 4.0
8. 08

   Tokyo Skytree

   At 634 meters, the world’s tallest tower, opened in 2012 across the Sumida River from Asakusa. Its two decks, at 350 and 450 meters, look out over the whole Kantō plain, and on clear winter days as far as Mount Fuji.

   Go on a clear morning for the longest views, or at dusk to see the lights come on across the city.

   Photo: Basile Morin, CC BY-SA 4.0

Three hidden gems

29 of Tokyo’s best-loved sights, routed into 4 days by the same engine that plans every SwipeSights trip: nearby stops share a day, walks stay short, and each stop is timed around its opening hours.

Pick the neighborhood first, then the hotel. Each link opens a map of places to stay around it.

Hotel links go to Stay22. If you book, we may earn a commission, at no cost to you.

Tokyo has more restaurants than anyone could try, from six-seat counters to department store food halls, and many of its classics began as fast food in Edo: sushi, tempura and soba, sold from street stalls. Lunch sets are the best value, dinner starts early, around 6 to 7pm, and many small places take cash only.

Sushi

Nigiri, a slice of fish pressed by hand onto vinegared rice, was an Edo street snack of the early 1800s. At a counter, eat each piece as soon as it is set down, in one bite, and dip the fish, not the rice.

Photo: chidorian from Japan, CC BY-SA 2.0

Shōyu ramen

Tokyo’s own bowl: a clear soy sauce broth with curly noodles, sliced pork, bamboo shoots and a slice of fish cake. Order and pay at the ticket machine by the door.

Photo: Quercus acuta, CC BY-SA 4.0

Tempura

Shrimp, fish and vegetables in a light, crisp batter, best at a counter where each piece comes straight from the oil, with salt or a dipping sauce and grated radish.

Photo: pelican from Tokyo, Japan, CC BY-SA 2.0

Soba

Buckwheat noodles, served cold on a bamboo tray with a dipping sauce. At the end you are brought sobayu, the cooking water, to pour into the leftover sauce and drink.

Photo: m-louis, CC BY-SA 2.0

Unajū

Grilled eel glazed with a sweet soy sauce over rice in a lacquered box. Tokyo eats the most of it on the Day of the Ox, in late July, for strength in the summer heat.

Photo: Wei-Te Wong from Taipei City, Taiwan, Republic of China, CC BY-SA 2.0

Monjayaki

Tsukishima’s own dish: chopped cabbage and fillings go on the griddle in a ring, a runny batter goes in the middle, and you eat it straight off the hot plate with tiny spatulas.

Photo: hatch.m, CC BY-SA 2.0

Yakitori

Chicken skewers grilled over charcoal and seasoned with salt or a sweet sauce, from thigh and scallion to meatballs and hearts. Best with a beer in the smoky lanes under the tracks.

Photo: N509FZ, CC BY-SA 4.0

Ningyō-yaki

Small sponge cakes filled with sweet bean paste, first made in Ningyōchō. In Asakusa they are baked in molds shaped like the Kaminarimon lantern and sold warm.

Photo: 毒島みるく, CC0

Eat breakfast at the Tsukiji Outer Market, lunch from a set menu and dinner in an izakaya, where the table orders small plates to share. The basement food halls of the department stores, the depachika, sell beautiful food to take away, and convenience stores sell good onigiri at any hour. For a group, try monjayaki on Tsukishima’s Monja Street or yakitori under the tracks at Yūrakuchō.

Matsuo Bashō

1644 to 1694

Bashō came to Edo in his late twenties, and in 1680 moved to a hut across the Sumida in Fukagawa, where a disciple planted a banana plant, bashō, that gave the hut and then the poet their names. There he wrote his most famous poem, the old pond and the frog, in 1686, and from there, in the spring of 1689, he set out on the journey of The Narrow Road to the Deep North. The Bashō Memorial Museum stands near the site.

Natsume Sōseki

1867 to 1916

Born in Edo in 1867, a year before it became Tokyo, Sōseki taught English, spent two unhappy years in London and came home to write. I Am a Cat (1905 to 1906), Tokyo’s educated class seen through the eyes of a nameless cat, was written in a rented house in Sendagi where Mori Ōgai had lived before him. In Sanshirō (1908) a student from Kyushu drifts through the Imperial University in Hongō, where a pond on the campus now carries his name. A museum stands on the site of Sōseki’s last home, in Waseda.

Higuchi Ichiyō

1872 to 1896

Poor and supporting her mother and sister, Ichiyō kept a small shop selling sweets and household goods in 1893 and 1894 in Ryūsenji, by the Yoshiwara pleasure quarter. The children of that street became Takekurabe (Child’s Play, 1895 to 1896), about a girl growing up to follow her sister into the quarter. She wrote her best work in little more than a year and died of tuberculosis at 24. A memorial museum stands in the same neighborhood, and her face was on the 5,000-yen note from 2004 to 2024.

Haruki Murakami

born 1949

Murakami came to Tokyo in 1968 to study at Waseda and ran a jazz bar, Peter Cat, first in Kokubunji and then in Sendagaya, before his first novel. In Norwegian Wood (1987), Tōru and Naoko meet by chance on a Chūō line train and walk from Yotsuya along the old moat, through Iidabashi and Ochanomizu, all the way to Komagome. Waseda’s International House of Literature, known as the Haruki Murakami Library, opened in 2021.

A cloud of flowers!

Is the bell Uyeno

Or Asakusa?

Matsuo Bashō, a haiku of 1687, translated by William George Aston in A History of Japanese Literature (1899)