Tokyo, Japan — 5 Days

Asakusa, on foot. Senso-ji before the crowds build, sukiyaki for lunch at a restaurant that's been serving it since 1895, then Skytree in the afternoon before you check into a hotel a five-minute walk from where the day started.

• 09:30

  Senso-ji Temple

  Tokyo's oldest temple, founded in 645, entered through the huge red lantern at Kaminarimon.

• 10:45

  Walk: Senso-ji Temple → Nakamise-dori Shopping Street

• 10:45

  Nakamise-dori Shopping Street

  The stall-lined approach to the temple gate, unchanged in layout since the Edo period even though every shop has turned over.

• 12:15

  Walk: Nakamise-dori Shopping Street → Asakusa Imahan Kokusaidori Honten

• 12:15

  Asakusa Imahan Kokusaidori Honten

  Sukiyaki since 1895, in a dining room that's a registered cultural property.

• 14:30

  Walk: Asakusa Imahan Kokusaidori Honten → Tokyo Skytree Tembo Deck

• 14:30

  Tokyo Skytree Tembo Deck

  634 metres up, the tallest structure in Japan, with Fuji visible on a clear day.

• 16:30

  Walk: Tokyo Skytree Tembo Deck → Richmond Hotel Premier Asakusa International

• 16:30

  Richmond Hotel Premier Asakusa International

  A business hotel on Kokusai-dori, close enough to Senso-ji to walk back after dinner.

• 17:00

  Walk: Richmond Hotel Premier Asakusa International → Asakusa Unana

• 17:00

  Asakusa Unana

  Grilled eel on a rice ball you eat standing up, ordered at one counter and collected at another — a quick early-evening bite, not a sit-down dinner.

Harajuku empties into Shibuya. A forest shrine, a fashion street built for teenagers, a museum garden quiet enough to hear the gravel, then the scramble crossing at its loudest hour.

• 09:00

  Meiji Jingu Shrine

  A Shinto shrine inside 70 hectares of forest that was planted by hand a century ago and now looks like it's always been there.

• 11:00

  Walk: Meiji Jingu Shrine → Takeshita Street

• 11:00

  Takeshita Street

  A few hundred metres of crepe stalls and secondhand fashion, packed shoulder to shoulder most afternoons.

• 12:30

  Walk: Takeshita Street → Afuri Harajuku

• 12:30

  Afuri Harajuku

  Yuzu shio ramen with a broth light enough to finish.

• 14:00

  Walk: Afuri Harajuku → Nezu Museum

• 14:00

  Nezu Museum

  Pre-modern Asian art with a hillside garden behind it, usually the quietest hour of the day. Closed Mondays.

• 18:00

  Walk: Nezu Museum → Shibuya Scramble Crossing

• 18:00

  Shibuya Scramble Crossing

  Up to three thousand people crossing at once when the lights change, from every direction.

• 19:30

  Walk: Shibuya Scramble Crossing → Uobei Shibuya Dogenzaka

• 19:30

  Uobei Shibuya Dogenzaka

  Order from a tablet, watch the plate arrive on its own conveyor lane straight to your seat.

Fish, gardens, and two very different kinds of sushi. Breakfast standing up at a Tsukiji counter, dinner sitting down at the restaurant credited with inventing the modern gunkan-maki roll.

• 08:30

  Tsukiji Outer Market

  The retail side of the old fish market. The wholesale auction moved to Toyosu in 2018; this part stayed.

• 11:30

  Walk: Tsukiji Outer Market → Tachigui Sushi Akira

• 11:30

  Tachigui Sushi Akira

  A standing sushi counter inside the Akilab building, from the team behind Sushi Ryusho.

• 12:45

  Walk: Tachigui Sushi Akira → Hama-rikyu Gardens

• 12:45

  Hama-rikyu Gardens

  A former shogunal garden with a tidal pond that still rises and falls with Tokyo Bay.

• 14:30

  Walk: Hama-rikyu Gardens → Ginza Six

• 14:30

  Ginza Six

  A department complex with a rooftop garden above the shopping floors.

• 16:00

  Walk: Ginza Six → Kabukiza Theatre

• 16:00

  Kabukiza Theatre

  Kabuki's main stage in Tokyo. Showtimes vary by month and this slot can land between the matinee and evening performances — good for the lobby and gift shop; check the day's program if you want to catch a show.

• 18:30

  Walk: Kabukiza Theatre → Ginza Kyubey

• 18:30

  Ginza Kyubey

  Opened in 1935. The founder is credited with inventing the gunkan-maki roll here, to hold ingredients too soft to shape by hand.

Imperial gardens to a museum to the one part of the city the 1923 earthquake and the 1945 bombing both mostly missed. Yanaka still looks like old Tokyo because, largely, it is. Three stops here — the East Gardens, the museum, and Hantei — close on Mondays, so shift this day if yours falls on one.

• 09:00

  Imperial Palace East Gardens

  Public gardens on the grounds of the old Edo Castle keep, free to enter.

• 10:30

  Cycle: Imperial Palace East Gardens → Ameyoko Shopping Street

• 10:30

  Ameyoko Shopping Street

  A market arcade under the Yamanote line tracks that started as a black market after the war.

• 11:30

  Walk: Ameyoko Shopping Street → Tokyo National Museum

• 11:30

  Tokyo National Museum

  Japan's oldest museum, inside Ueno Park, with more art than you'll get through in one visit.

• 13:15

  Walk: Tokyo National Museum → Innsyoutei

• 13:15

  Innsyoutei

  A Meiji-era teahouse turned restaurant, serving kaiseki courses in a wooden building that's now a protected cultural property.

• 16:00

  Walk: Innsyoutei → Yanaka Ginza

• 16:00

  Yanaka Ginza

  One of the few Tokyo neighbourhoods the 1923 earthquake and the 1945 firebombing both mostly missed. It still looks like it.

• 18:30

  Walk: Yanaka Ginza → Hantei

• 18:30

  Hantei

  Kushiage skewers in a three-storey wooden building from 1909, one course at a time, until you say stop.

Digital art you walk through barefoot, then the actual wholesale fish market, then dinner at the restaurant that inspired Kill Bill's House of Blue Leaves, even though the film itself was shot on a soundstage in Beijing.

• 09:30

  teamLab Planets TOKYO DMM

  Barefoot, ankle-deep digital art you walk through rather than look at.

• 12:00

  Walk: teamLab Planets TOKYO DMM → Toyosu Market Uogashi Yokocho

• 12:00

  Toyosu Market Uogashi Yokocho

  The market that replaced Tsukiji's inner wholesale side in 2018, now with its own food stalls upstairs.

• 14:30

  Bus: Toyosu Market Uogashi Yokocho → Mori Art Museum

• 14:30

  Mori Art Museum

  Contemporary art on the 53rd floor of Mori Tower, no elevator wait like the observation deck downstairs gets.

• 16:30

  Walk: Mori Art Museum → Tokyo City View Observation Deck

• 16:30

  Tokyo City View Observation Deck

  Indoor viewing on the floor above the museum, facing Tokyo Tower.

• 18:30

  Walk: Tokyo City View Observation Deck → Gonpachi Nishi-Azabu

• 18:30

  Gonpachi Nishi-Azabu

  The izakaya that inspired the House of Blue Leaves set in Kill Bill, though the actual filming happened on a soundstage in Beijing.