Kanto, Japan · City
Japan's capital and usual gateway city; it combines ultramodern districts (Shibuya, Akihabara) with traditional areas (Asakusa).
Train — Main gateway city, Narita/Haneda airports, extensive subway network
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The most important kabuki theatre in the world, rebuilt in 2013 on the site of the 1889 house with an office tower behind it. The decisive thing for a traveller: single-act tickets, hitomakumi, are sold much cheaper and without booking, bought the same day at the side box office and seated on the fourth floor. English audio guide available.
Japan's most important museum, with the Honkan devoted to Japanese art by period, the Toyokan to continental Asia, and Taniguchi Yoshio's Horyu-ji Treasures gallery to seventh-century Buddhist bronzes. 1,000 yen, free under 18 and over 70.
A neighbourhood devoted to otaku culture, with shops selling figures, manga, and electronics.
A Shinto shrine dedicated to Emperor Meiji, surrounded by a lush forest next to Harajuku.
A stream-and-damp-forest route that avoids the asphalt of trail 1 and comes out at Yakuo-in temple and, on clear days, views of Fuji. It is the most climbed mountain on earth, about three million visitors a year: go on a weekday, start before eight, and take trail 6 or Inariyama.
The crowd opens thousands of coloured umbrellas and sings the Tokyo Ondo every time the team scores. A small open-air stadium with far more atmosphere than the Tokyo Dome, and one condemned by the Jingu Gaien redevelopment.
The world's largest wholesale fish market opens at 5am, with glazed walkways above the tuna auction and around twenty sushi counters serving from first light. Note: the ground-level auction platform is allocated by LOTTERY the month before; the window gallery is free and needs no booking. Closed Sundays, holidays and alternate Wednesdays.
The most photographed crossing in the world, plus panoramic views from the Shibuya Sky observation deck.
One of Edo's three great festivals, held in full ONLY in odd years: on Saturday a procession of nearly a thousand people covers thirty kilometres through Kanda, Nihonbashi and Marunouchi; on Sunday more than two hundred mikoshi enter the shrine. Even years bring the kage-matsuri, a reduced, near-internal version.
A working Sumida workshop where you cut your own glass on the wheel, choosing shape and pattern from dozens of motifs. Around 5,000 yen, ninety minutes, three slots Tuesday to Saturday, booked online.
A century-old workshop by the Kanda river, in the district that was the heart of Tokyo dyeing, where the microscopic komon motif is printed with paper stencils. Ninety to a hundred and twenty minutes, weekdays only, with a small museum of the trade.
Thirty buildings dismantled and rebuilt here, from an Edo farmhouse to Kunio Maekawa's home and a shitamachi shopping street that inspired Miyazaki. 400 yen, closed Mondays, and it is in Koganei, not central Tokyo.
In the hon-matsuri, fifty-four neighbourhood mikoshi parade together while the crowd drenches the bearers with buckets and hoses as a purification rite. The big one is EVERY THREE YEARS: 2026 was one, the next is 2029. You will end up soaked, and soaking spectators is not part of the rite.
Japan's most ambitious department-store food basement: French patisserie, wagashi from century-old houses, haute-cuisine bento and pickle counters across two underground floors. The cheap way to taste produce that would cost ten times as much in a restaurant.
Home of the mingei movement, founded by Yanagi Soetsu in 1936, with ceramics, textiles and anonymous objects in a wooden building you walk through in slippers. Yanagi's own house opposite opens only the second and third Wednesday and Saturday of each month.
Tutelary shrine of 108 Edo neighbourhoods, its vermilion-lacquered hall rebuilt in concrete in 1934 and therefore a survivor of the firebombing. It sells amulets for data and server protection and collaborates with anime series: it is Akihabara's digital patron.
Tokyo holds around 160 starred restaurants and has been the world's most starred city for nineteen years running. Sushi counters and seasonal kaiseki book one to three months out, often only through your hotel.
Robotics, biotechnology and the Geo-Cosmos globe in Odaiba. 630 yen for adults, closed Tuesdays, permanent exhibition free on Saturdays. Note: a renovation closure has been announced between October 2026 and April 2027; confirm before going.
A reclaimed island with nearly a hundred places devoted to monjayaki, the runny, plebeian cousin of okonomiyaki that you cook yourself on the griddle set into your table. Dead by day, packed at dusk with people who live there.
A labyrinthine 1960s mall with around twenty Mandarake stores selling second-hand manga, figures and toys. It is Akihabara for the veteran collector: cheaper and far less touristy.
The only Le Corbusier building in Japan and a World Heritage Site since 2016, with its spiral ramp, nineteenth-century gallery and restored forecourt. In 2026 it marks the tenth anniversary with tours of normally closed areas.
The local public bathhouse, with a regulated maximum fare that rose to 600 yen in August 2026, Mount Fuji murals and neighbours who know each other by name. Kosugiyu in Koenji and Daikoku-yu in Kita-Senju are among the few that accept tattoos and explain the rules in English.
A first-rank private collection in a Kengo Kuma building, with a sloping tea-house garden that breaks completely with Omotesando outside. Not to be confused with Nezu Shrine in Bunkyo, which is unrelated. Ogata Korin's irises screens are shown only a few weeks in spring.
Tokyo is the one place to compare light Tokyo shoyu, the tsukemen born in Ikebukuro, Sapporo miso and Hakata tonkotsu in a single day. Most places take your order at a ticket machine before you sit; a bowl runs around 1,000 yen.
A 1702 daimyo garden conceived as a walk through eighty-eight scenes from waka poetry, with a pond, a hill and tea houses. 300 yen, with night illuminations for the weeping cherry in spring and the maples in autumn.
Festival of the shrine that guarded Edo Castle, with the Shinko-sai procession of some three hundred participants in court dress crossing the financial district over nine hours. Even years only: 2026 ran 7 to 17 June and the next big one is 2028.
Soto temple where Asano Naganori and his forty-seven retainers lie, with incense lit at every headstone for three centuries. It is a working cemetery, not a Chushingura set: keep your voice down and respect the photography bans where posted.
Six postwar alleys with more than two hundred bars of four to eight seats, each with its own theme and its own owner. A 500 to 1,500 yen cover is standard and not up for debate, and photographing interiors or people is forbidden by default. Some bars are regulars-only and say so at the door: that is six-seat capacity, not hostility.
Postwar cafes with velvet, cigarette smoke and slow pour-over coffee: Cafe de L'Ambre in Ginza since 1948, Sabouru in Jimbocho, Chatei Hatou in Shibuya. A dying format; many close when the owner retires.
Location warning: both parks are in Urayasu, CHIBA prefecture, fifteen minutes from Tokyo Station, not in Tokyo prefecture. DisneySea, with its Fantasy Springs area, is the most distinctive park in the Disney world and sells out weeks ahead.
A thirty-thousand-square-metre studio in Nerima, on the old Toshimaen site, with original sets of the Great Hall, Diagon Alley and the Forbidden Forest. From 6,600 yen for adults, timed entry and booking required.
Shingon mountain temple founded in 744 and a living centre of shugendo, where you can attend the goma fire rite and book shojin ryori. On the second Sunday of March the Hiwatari Matsuri lets the public walk the embers behind the yamabushi: it is a rite, not an attraction.
The Suntory Museum, in an interior by Kengo Kuma, shows lacquer, glass, textiles and folding screens. Ten minutes away, the 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT by Tadao Ando and Issey Miyake stages design monographs in a half-buried building roofed with folded steel.
A Senzoku workshop with four vats of fermented indigo and staff who work in English, taking children from the age of four. A handkerchief costs 2,500 yen and one hour; a T-shirt or a shawl, between 8,000 and 10,000 and an hour and a half.
The largest awa dance festival outside Tokushima: 10,000 dancers and close to a million spectators in streets five metres wide, on the last weekend of August. There are paid stands and free stretches, and the stations jam solid once it ends.
Genuine hot spring water inside the city, black from the fossil plant matter beneath Tokyo, in a wooden building with a garden and outdoor baths in Itabashi. It is designed for half a day and bars entry with visible tattoos.
A market licensed since 1578 and an Intangible Folk Cultural Property of Tokyo, set up on only four days a year: 15 and 16 December and 15 and 16 January, from nine to eight. 700 stalls of cloth, plants and tools, and freshly pounded daikan mochi.
The largest fanzine market in the world, with hundreds of thousands of attendees and a cosplay area, in August and in late December. A paid wristband is needed for each day, there are queues before dawn, extreme heat in summer, and no photography outside the cosplay area.
Municipal showcase of some 50 trades and more than 250 pieces: Edo blinds, paulownia chests, sashimono joinery, with panels in four languages. Free entry, closed on the second and fourth Tuesday.
The Buddhist temple of Indo-Japanese architecture opens its morning service to the public, and its cafe serves a breakfast of 18 tiny bowls inspired by the 18 vows of Amida. Long queue at weekends.
The Kannon-do of Gokoku-ji, built in 1697 and an Important Cultural Property, is one of the very few Edo buildings left intact, alongside the Momoyama-period Gekko-den and five tea houses. Combine it with the remains of Kanei-ji in Ueno, the Toshogu and the Kiyomizu Kannon-do.
A small private museum in Koto, funded by donations from some 4,000 people after the city refused to build a peace museum, covering the firebombing of 10 March 1945. It is a place of mourning: no photographs, low voices and hard material.
Paper merchant founded in 1653 that keeps a hand papermaking workshop on the ground floor and a small museum. 45 minutes for between 1,000 and 1,500 yen per sheet, Tuesday to Saturday, booking three days ahead.
Guardian shrine of Edo castle and seat of the Sanno Matsuri, with a passage of vermilion torii climbing the hillside and pairs of monkeys in place of lion-dogs. A direct contrast between the woods of the precinct and the towers of Nagatacho.
On 9 and 10 July Senso-ji holds the shiman-rokusen-nichi: visiting on those two days counts as 46,000 days of merit, around 126 years, and only then is the amulet against lightning handed out. The Chinese lantern plant fair goes back to the Meiwa era.
Historic scientific collection of the University of Tokyo staged as a museum installation inside the KITTE building in Marunouchi, with skeletons, herbaria and period display cases. Free entry, two minutes from Tokyo station.
A narrow alley of bars and yakitori stalls with a retro atmosphere.
An active volcano, lava flows and an ash field that looks like Mars, all inside Tokyo prefecture. Fast ferry from Takeshiba in under two hours, or the overnight boat.
130 used bookshops specialised by subject, with loose ukiyo-e prints, magazines from the sixties and stock in European languages. The same neighbourhood is the Tokyo capital of Japanese curry and holds its book fair in late October.
The second-oldest temple in Tokyo, with a 7th-century bronze image designated a National Treasure and a wooded precinct fed by springs. The approach street lives off soba noodles kneaded with that water.
A slope of stone alleys, ryotei with lanterns and bamboo fences where geisha still work, and above it a French colony of bakeries and bistros grown around the local lycee. Akagi shrine, rebuilt by Kengo Kuma, is the contemporary note. Some streets forbid filming.
The street where the Tokyo restaurant trade stocks up: knife shops, tableware sold by weight, wagashi moulds and the workshops making sampuru, the resin food replicas seen in window displays. Many shops engrave a name on a knife the same day.
Natural hot spring water one minute from Takaosanguchi station, meant for coming down off the mountain and getting straight into the rotenburo. It closes the perfect circle of a day on Takao.
A Meiji-era strolling garden built by the founder of Mitsubishi, with a carp pond and a path of stepping stones crossed by hopping over the water. The rocks were brought in one by one on the company's own ships from every province.
Old wooden warehouses along the canal turned into specialty coffee roasteries, ever since Blue Bottle opened its first site outside the United States here. Combine it with Kiyosumi garden and the Museum of Contemporary Art.
A house founded more than 370 years ago that supplies shrines and temples, with a visit to the workshop otherwise closed to the public and to the dyeing room. Around 150 minutes from 12,000 yen, starting at half past one on weekdays, and the finished piece arrives by post a month later.
From 30 April to 6 May at Okunitama shrine: eight mikoshi come out at six in the evening on the 5th, preceded by six giant drums, with horseback archery on the 3rd and 22 floats on the 4th. Some 800,000 people, and it is inside Tokyo, in Fuchu.
Cafes born when buying records was out of reach, with three-metre speakers, armchairs facing forward like church pews and a ban on conversation and phones. The Lion in Shibuya has run since 1926 and holds 5,000 records.
A shitamachi neighbourhood with midday izakayas and Fudodo temple, where the goma rite of drums and fire is held five times a day, at nine, eleven, one, three and five, free and open to anyone. Next door stands Tomioka Hachimangu, birthplace of professional sumo.
Contemporary Asian art on the 53rd floor with views over the whole city, very strong on curation and open late. Warning: it closes for renovation from 24 September 2027 until late April 2028.
A funicular up to a mountain village with a thousand-year-old shrine and a circuit of moss, rocks and waterfalls taking about two hours. Far less crowded than Takao, with the option of sleeping in a pilgrims' shukubo.
A chronological run through Japanese art since 1900, including the room of war paintings that the museum both displays and puts in context. The collection costs 500 yen, 300 on Fridays and Saturdays from five, and is free for under-18s.
A life-size blue whale at the entrance, Japanese fossils, the stuffed dog Hachiko and a 360-degree spherical theatre. One of the best-value museums in Tokyo.
Noh is the oldest living theatre in the world, dating from the 14th century, with carved masks and a deliberately glacial rhythm; it usually alternates with kyogen, the short comic pieces that lighten it. Note: the National Theatre of Japan at Hanzomon has been closed for reconstruction since 2023 and its programming is scattered, so it is worth confirming where each piece is staged.
38 tiny counters in two wooden rows beside the railway, saved from the bulldozer because the owners organised and secured the lease. Two drinks come to around 2,000 yen with the otoshi included, and photographs are asked for first.
The largest open-air antiques market in Japan, some 250 stalls of ceramics, obi, tableware and devotional objects, from nine to four and free. It runs twice a month, but the dates change and it is cancelled in rain.
The anniversary of Nichiren's death on that very spot in 1282: on the night of 12 October a hundred or so groups climb the stairway with paper-flower lanterns, drums and flutes until dawn. Fixed dates, from the 11th to the 13th.
Subtropical World Heritage a thousand kilometres to the south, with humpback whales, dolphins and endemic forest, and still Tokyo. The only way in is the Ogasawara Maru, and the ship's cycle forces a stay of about six days.
A stretch of Higashi-Ikebukuro given over to manga, doujinshi and merchandise aimed at a female audience, with the Animate flagship store next door. The exact counterpart to Akihabara.
Tokyo's oldest variety theatre, running since 1857: a storyteller sitting on a cushion plays every part in a comic tale using only a fan and a cloth. There is no translation, so it works best with some Japanese or plain curiosity about the form; the programme rotates every ten days and you can come and go freely.
The triangle of alleys behind Sangenjaya station packs in izakayas, vinyl bars and five-seat taverns filled with people who live there. It is what Shimokitazawa was before it reached the guidebooks, two stops from Shibuya.
Complex opened in 2024 next to Toyosu, with 60 food outlets in an Edo-village set and an onsen fed by water brought from Hakone-Yugawara, with baths on the tenth floor. There is a free foot bath on the eighth. It is the real replacement for the Oedo Onsen in Odaiba, which closed in 2021.
Tokyo's oldest temple, fronted by a traditional shopping street.
Bean throwing to drive out the demons, with the peculiarity that the usual formula is not shouted here, since it is held that before Kannon there are no demons. It includes the Dance of the Seven Gods of Fortune and a throw by guest actors.
Nichiren temple from 1629 whose hall is lined with reliefs of the Lotus Sutra carved between 1915 and 1929 by ten different masters. The combined ticket for the gallery and the garden costs 400 yen and is cash only.
A whole floor of official video game stores in Shibuya Parco, with exclusives that do not exist outside Japan. On Saturdays there are queues with numbered tickets at the door.
Free hot pools at the edge of the Pacific such as Jinata, where the hot water mixes with the tide. A tiny island in the Izu archipelago that administratively is Tokyo.
Tokyo has the most precise school of bartending in the world: hand-carved ice, Japanese whisky and 12-seat bars on upper floors with no sign outside. Many charge a seat cover and some take reservations or introductions only.
Single-artist museum in the neighbourhood where Hokusai lived for almost 90 years, in a cleft aluminium building by Kazuyo Sejima. The permanent display costs 400 yen and includes a reconstruction of the artist's studio.
600 metres of neighbourhood shopping street in Koto with fry shops, grilled yakitori, pickles and croquettes eaten on the spot for small change. Almost no tourists and almost no English.
Drinking on your feet, shoulder to shoulder with salarymen coming off work, with 2-euro plates and fast turnover. It is the cheapest and least intimidating way into Japanese bar culture, because nobody expects you to stay.
Immersive digital art installations, one of Tokyo's most photographed experiences; Borderless reopened in Azabudai Hills after the original Odaiba venue closed in 2022.
A 1933 mansion with interiors by Henri Rapin and Lalique glass, one of the finest Art Deco ensembles in Asia, plus a contemporary wing from 2014. The Japanese garden and the lawn are visited separately from the building.
A re-enactment of the Hiroshige print in which the foxes of Kanto gather under a hackberry tree before going to Oji Inari shrine: hundreds of people in masks and make-up walk from Shozoku Inari to the shrine just before midnight.
The oldest shichifukujin circuit in Japan, six kilometres on foot from Tabata to Ueno through six temples and the Bentendo on Shinobazu pond. From 1 to 10 January a commemorative shikishi is stamped; the rest of the year the walk is the same with ordinary stamps.
The last tram line in Tokyo, 12 kilometres and 30 stops between Waseda and Minowabashi, crossing neighbourhoods where nobody gets off to sightsee. A ticket costs 170 yen, or 400 for a day pass, and in April it runs between cherry trees planted along the track.
The only ravine in the 23 wards: a kilometre of path beside a stream, under bamboo and maples, with a Fudo temple and a tea house at the end. It reopened in March 2026 after two and a half years closed because of falling trees; check that it is still open.
One of the six World Marathon Majors, with more than 30,000 runners crossing Asakusa, Ginza and Tokyo station in early March. Entry is by ballot almost a year in advance; watching from the street is free and spectacular.
The largest permanent projection mapping in the world according to Guinness, on almost 14,000 square metres of facade. Free, five showings a night between half past seven and half past nine, and upstairs there is a free observation deck at 202 metres.
The largest Hachiman shrine in Tokyo, birthplace of professional sumo, with monuments to the yokozuna and to the cartographer Ino Tadataka. An antiques market is held in the precinct on several Sundays each month.
On each Day of the Rooster in November, Otori shrine and Chokoku-ji temple in Asakusa open for 24 hours and sell decorated kumade; every purchase is sealed with a ritual hand clap from the seller. There are two or three fairs depending on the year, so the date shifts.
The heaviest mikoshi in Tokyo, around four tonnes, goes round the neighbourhood and returns to the shrine after dark lit by lanterns, in a far rougher and more local atmosphere than Asakusa. Around the second Sunday of June, through narrow streets with nowhere to step aside.
Stalls selling fresh seafood and sushi breakfasts next to the former wholesale market.
An Edo technique that folds small silk squares with tweezers into petals, the same craft behind the headdresses of the maiko. The workshops in the doll district let you leave with a hairpin or a brooch made by hand.
The brick arches of the Yamanote viaduct have housed smoke-thick grills for decades, with trains rumbling overhead. It coexists with the Ginza Corridor, the expensive version of the same stretch.
Shrine to Tenjin, patron of study, where thousands of ema tablets ask for a pass in the entrance exams. The Umematsuri runs from 8 February to 8 March with some 300 plum trees and offered performances.
Eight group 1 races a year, among them the Japan Cup and the Japanese Derby, in front of tens of thousands of people. Admission costs 200 yen and there is a playground, food and 100-yen bets.
New Odaiba arena opened in October 2025, home to the B.League and its show of lights and entertainment. It is the best reason Odaiba has left to go there at night.
A short alley in the Tokyo of the old trade guilds, where shops selling amazake, tofu, ningyoyaki and taiyaki still run from houses more than a century old. Combine it with Suitengu shrine and Tsukuda island, birthplace of tsukudani.
The kilometre zero of Japan still holds shinise houses that have kept the same trade for centuries: washi paper, knives, nori seaweed, brushes, chopsticks. It is the sober, artisan alternative to the international luxury of Ginza.
Fully automated monorail that crosses the Rainbow Bridge and makes a helical loop over the bay. Sit in the front row and you have the best driver's view in Tokyo for free.
Museum of the creator of Doraemon with original artwork, a themed roof terrace and a cafe. Warning: it is in Kawasaki, Kanagawa prefecture, not in Tokyo, and admission is for a fixed date and time, bought in advance at Lawson, and sells out.
A 177-metre pressure tank with 59 concrete pillars that protects Tokyo from floods. Warning: it is in Kasukabe, Saitama prefecture, a good hour from the centre, and booking is compulsory.
Around 3,000 capsule machines in Sunshine City, a Guinness record. Bring 100-yen coins and assume you will lose half an hour more than planned.
A museum dedicated to the world of Studio Ghibli, with recreated scenes from its films, designed especially for families with young children; tickets are allocated in advance by lottery and tend to sell out.
Tokyo's permanent home for professional sumo, hosting three of the six annual grand tournaments (honbasho) in January, May, and September — available only on those dates, and tickets sell out well in advance.
From 17 to 19 December Senso-ji fills with stalls of hagoita, the battledore paddles covered in silk with relief portraits of kabuki actors and the figures of the year. It is both a year-end fair and a catalogue of current Japanese affairs.
A postwar black market turned into 100 cupboard-sized premises, in a maze so narrow it is named after the holes of a harmonica. By day it sells fish and pickles, by night people drink standing. It lies in Musashino, not in the 23 wards.
A turquoise gorge with a suspension bridge and a riverside walk between Hatonosu and Okutama stations. It can be done in trainers and is still inside Tokyo prefecture.
20 hectares of deliberately unlandscaped woodland in the middle of Minato, run as a scientific reserve with a capped number of visitors so that it is never crowded. It is the closest thing to forest bathing without leaving Tokyo.
The largest nightlife district in Asia, with the 2023 tower and its food floor as a tamed way in. One rule, and it is enough: never follow a street tout, because the real risk is the unitemised bills at the places they steer you to.
Paddling at water level under the historic bridges of the Sumida with the Skytree behind, in small guided groups. There are departures at dawn and among the cherry blossom.
A practical session in a Tokyo dojo with borrowed equipment and an explanation in English of the etiquette and the basic strikes. There are judo, aikido and iaido equivalents within the budo tourism programme.
A child-scale city where children work as firefighters, surgeons or journalists and are paid in its own currency. Morning and afternoon sessions by reservation, and some activities available in English.
Tokyo's punk and underground neighbourhood since the seventies, with 50-capacity basements where three or four bands play a night for around 2,500 yen plus a compulsory drink. None of it is advertised in English.
Tokyo's most elegant shopping district, home to flagship luxury boutiques and century-old department stores.
Municipal hot spring bath above the Tama river, with sauna and rest room, ten minutes on foot from Okutama station. It is the most accessible genuine onsen within the Tokyo boundary.
A games arcade with a bar in the Tokyu Kabukicho Tower, plus the Shinjuku arcade circuit, with rhythm machines, claw cranes and taiko. It runs until well into the night.
One of Tokyo's oldest shrines, known for its tunnel of vermilion torii and for its Azalea Festival in early April, a far quieter alternative to Meiji Jingu. Not to be confused with the Nezu Museum, which stands in Minami-Aoyama and carries the name of a businessman: they are separate things and unrelated. This shrine is in Bunkyo and in April holds the Tsutsuji Matsuri with some 3,000 azaleas of 100 varieties.
Single-subject paper museum in Asukayama park, in the neighbourhood where the modern Japanese paper industry was born, with machinery, history and samples. It runs hand papermaking workshops designed for children as well.
Class two and three rapids an hour and a half from Shinjuku, with operators that take beginners and children from primary school age. Half a day with wetsuit and transfer included.
A tiny sento from 1931 beside Ueno park whose water comes out almost opaque and very hot, with a clientele of elderly locals and no concession to the visitor. It is a hard, untranslated experience, not a spa.
A Shinto festival held in mid-May in Asakusa, featuring a procession of nearly a hundred mikoshi (portable shrines) through the streets by Senso-ji Temple.
Indoor park in Tama, inside Tokyo prefecture, 40 minutes from Shinjuku on the Keio line. Dynamic pricing depending on the day and variable closing days, so check the calendar.
Sauna has boomed in Japan over the past decade, and Tokyo has everything from temples of the genre in Akasaka to saunas inside ordinary sentos. The cycle is sauna, cold bath and rest in the open air, and the state being sought has its own name: totonou.
A pilgrims' street of dango and senbei shops leading to Taishakuten temple, the setting of the Tora-san film series, with the last rowing ferry on the Edo river. It sits at the far edge of Katsushika, almost an hour from Shinjuku.
The densest concentration of LGBTQ bars in the world, around 300 venues in a few blocks. Many cater to a specific clientele and say so at the door; a few are mixed and explicitly welcoming to visitors.
165 hectares with 14 kilometres of dedicated cycle path, giant inflatable domes to jump on and flower fields by season. Bike hire inside the park, including children's bikes and trailers.
Giant models with automation and day-night cycles, including the Evangelion hangar and the city of Tokyo-3. 3,200 yen for adults, and you can have yourself scanned and stay inside as a figurine.
800 metres of shops aimed at older people: lucky red underwear, walking sticks, sweets and the Togenuki Jizo temple, where you rub the statue wherever it hurts. On the 4th, 14th and 24th a market takes over the street.
An indoor 350-tonne pool with Magellanic penguins, 700 jellyfish and an Edo-rium holding 20 varieties of goldfish. 2,700 yen, entirely under cover, ideal for a rainy day.
One of the oldest and most crowded fireworks festivals in Japan, dating back to 1733, held in late July beside Asakusa with around 20,000 shells. It falls on a single Saturday in late July, on a different date each year, and is called off if it rains. It is also the most crowded event in Tokyo: arrive hours early or find an alternative vantage point.
Around 20 antique dealers and galleries along the back streets of a residential neighbourhood on the Chuo line, with ceramics, Taisho furniture, lamps and second-hand kimono. Almost none open on Mondays and some only Thursday to Sunday.
The official Gunpla model store on the seventh floor of DiverCity, with exclusives and a building area. Important warning: the Unicorn Gundam statue that stood outside ended its run in August 2026 after nine years, so the store no longer comes with a giant at the door.
Experimental building with free access in the middle of Ginza, from three basement levels to the roof, with rotating installations and music collaborations. Free entry, eleven to seven. It is a new building, not the temporary park of 2018.
The capital's two clubs share the Ajinomoto Stadium in Chofu, and their meeting is the most locally charged match in the J-League. FC Tokyo sells tickets through a website in English.
A glass dome by Yoshio Taniguchi facing the bay, with a cylindrical tank of bluefin tuna in continuous motion. It is municipal, cheap, and does not build its offer on marine mammal shows.
Japan's tallest tower (634 m), with the Tembo Deck and Galleria observation levels and the Solamachi shopping centre at its foot, in the Sumida district.
Changing rooms, mixed zone, track and viewing deck of the timber stadium by Kengo Kuma that hosted the 2020 Games. 1,800 yen for adults, 3,000 for the version with the box and the imperial lounge.
A large park home to the Tokyo National Museum, Ueno Zoo, and one of the city's best spots for cherry-blossom viewing (hanami).
Narrow lanes lined with secondhand clothing shops, record stores, and independent cafés — Tokyo's bohemian neighbourhood.
Tokyo Dome is the home stadium of Japan's most popular professional baseball (NPB) team; the season runs roughly from March to October.
A zazen meditation session with information available in English, easily reached by public transport from central Tokyo; Saturday evening sessions require no advance reservation, while Sunday morning sessions must be booked one day ahead.
A 600-year-old temple, once the family temple of the Tokugawa shoguns, with its Sangedatsumon gate and the classic view of its main hall directly below Tokyo Tower, the red 1958 tower modelled on the Eiffel. It is the funerary temple of six Tokugawa shoguns, and the tomb precinct has its own entry and opening hours, separate from the main hall.
Museum in Ryogoku devoted to the history of the city from the Edo period onwards, with full-scale replicas such as a kabuki stage and the Nihonbashi bridge; it reopened after renovation in 2026. It reopened on 31 March 2026 after about four years closed for a full overhaul, with new displays. Any notice of closure for building work is out of date.
The temple identified as the legendary origin of the maneki-neko (lucky cat), with a hall holding thousands of small white figurines donated by visitors, in the quiet Setagaya district.
A traditional garden by the bay, with a seawater pond and a teahouse at its centre.
Guided visit to the evacuation passages and the disaster-prevention installations under the bay, otherwise closed to the public. 1,000 yen, Tuesday to Friday, in Japanese only and cash only. Umihotaru is an artificial island in the waters of Chiba, not of Tokyo.
Track cycling with betting, a sport invented in Japan and Olympic since 2000, with a very committed local crowd. In Chofu, a token entry fee and a neighbourhood atmosphere that appears in no guidebook.
A guided visit to an active sumo stable (heya) in the Ryogoku neighbourhood to quietly observe the wrestlers' morning training; subject to the stable's availability and strict rules of conduct.
A kilometre of lit galleries at a constant eleven degrees, deep in Okutama. Buses from the station are infrequent, so the timings have to be worked out.
Six colossal bronze Jizo commissioned from 1706 and placed at the exits of Edo onto the great highways. The sixth was lost in the anti-Buddhist persecution of the Meiji era and is now replaced by Jomyo-in in Yanaka.
Under the tracks of the Tozai line, with carriage 1001 from 1927, designated a cultural property, and real driving simulators. 220 yen for adults, 100 for children, closed on Mondays.
A retro shopping street in the Yanaka neighbourhood, one of the few corners of Tokyo that still preserves the old-fashioned shitamachi atmosphere.
A shrine that enshrines 2.5 million war dead and has included, since 1978, 14 class A war criminals, which turns every official visit into a diplomatic incident with China and Korea. The Yushukan museum presents Japanese expansion in Asia as a war of liberation. Only for those who come to understand that debate, having read up beforehand, and never on 15 August.
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