5 Days in Tokyo

Tokyo's oldest temple, and the right place to start a first trip. Come before 8am: the Kaminarimon lantern and the Nakamise shopping street are yours before the tour groups arrive, and the main hall is already open. Buy a fresh ningyo-yaki cake from a Nakamise stall and eat it there, not walking.

It is a flat 20-minute walk across the Sumida from Senso-ji, so the view pairs naturally with the temple. Tickets start around 1,800 yen for the 350m Tembo Deck; buy a date-and-time ticket online to skip the counter line and the 500-yen same-day surcharge. On a clear morning you can pick out Mt. Fuji on the horizon.

An open-air market jammed under the JR tracks, and lunch. Walk it north to south, Ueno toward Okachimachi: the southern end is the louder, grittier stretch of seafood stalls and skewers. Graze rather than sit down, and keep cash on you.

Two minutes from the market, so chain them. The free wins are the Shinobazu Pond loop and the small Toshogu shrine; the museums and zoo charge separately and most close Mondays. If you land here in late March, this is one of the city's great cherry-blossom walks, around a thousand trees down the central path.

A Shinto shrine inside a man-made forest of a hundred thousand trees, and the calmest the day will get. Enter through the southern torii by Harajuku Station and walk the gravel approach; the wall of stacked, painted sake barrels on the right is the photo. Skip the 500-yen inner garden unless it's mid-June, when the irises are the only reason to pay.

The 400m lane of teen fashion, crepe stands and rainbow cotton candy, straight across from the shrine and a hard tonal switch. Walk it one way before noon while it's merely busy, get a crepe from Marion, then spill out the far end onto the broad, zelkova-lined luxury avenue of Omotesando.

Tokyo's architecture catwalk: the Tadao Ando-designed Omotesando Hills, the glass Dior and Tod's flagships, free to admire from the pavement. Have lunch on the parallel back lane, Cat Street, which is where the interesting boutiques and the locals actually are.

Honest take: at street level it is a very busy crosswalk. The trick is to see it from above, and you can do that for free from the second-floor Starbucks in the Q-Front building overlooking the scramble. Cross once with the crowd for the feeling of it, then go up and watch.

The loyal-dog statue is Tokyo's classic meeting point, in the square right outside the Hachiko exit with the crossing dead ahead, so you knock out both in one stop. There's usually a short photo line; early in the day it's clear.

The open-air rooftop on top of the station, and the day's finale. Book a sunset slot online days ahead; the rooftop deck is the draw and those slots sell out first, and the price steps up for after-3pm (sunset) entry. Go up to the corner edge first, before the line for it builds, and stay for blue hour as the crossing lights up below.

A 500-yen garden that is the antidote to Shinjuku's noise, three landscapes (Japanese, English, French) in one wall. It's closed Mondays, except through cherry-blossom season when it stays open and becomes the best hanami in the city. No alcohol, and bags get a look at the gate; the greenhouse and the Taiwan Pavilion are the quiet corners.

This is the honest answer to 'is Tokyo Tower worth it': skip the paid towers and come here. Two 202m observatories, both free, and the South deck stays open to 10pm with a Yayoi Kusama-designed public piano anyone can play. Same skyline as the ticketed decks, for nothing.

A quiet pocket of vermilion on the edge of the city's loudest nightlife district, free and open day and night. It's a good place to reset before the evening, and the spot to be in November for the Tori-no-Ichi rooster fair and its lucky bamboo rakes.

A lattice of smoke-filled yakitori counters by the west exit, where dinner is a few skewers and a beer standing up. Counters seat six or eight; sit where a seat charge is posted outside so there's no surprise, keep cash ready, and come before 6pm to actually get a stool. A round or two, then move on.

Six narrow lanes of more than 200 closet-sized bars, each with its own theme and barkeep. The seat charge (500 to 1,500 yen) is posted at the door, so pick a bar that shows its charge and an English-OK sign; don't photograph the interiors, and treat it as one drink then on to the next. It's a place to talk to strangers, not to settle in.

Breakfast, and the part of Tsukiji that never left. The famous tuna auction moved to Toyosu in 2018, but the outer market's hundreds of stalls stayed, so come hungry, not for a spectacle. Get there by 8:30 before the tour groups and the sell-outs; the queues form fastest at the tamagoyaki and uni vendors, and most are cash only.

A 300-yen Edo-era garden a ten-minute walk from the market, where a teahouse sits on an island in a tidal saltwater pond. Order the matcha and seasonal sweet set (about 1,000 yen) and take it with the Shiodome skyscrapers stacked behind the pines, the city's best old-meets-new view. A Tokyo Cruise water bus leaves from the garden's own pier if you'd rather float to Asakusa.

Lunch and a wander through Tokyo's grande-dame shopping district. The free 13th-floor rooftop garden at Ginza Six is a quiet lawn-and-bench break with skyline views, the opposite of the street below; Itoya is twelve floors of beautiful stationery for light souvenirs. On weekend afternoons the main Chuo-dori closes to cars.

A digital-art museum you walk through barefoot, wading knee-deep through water in places while koi made of light scatter around your legs. Book a timed slot well ahead (weekend windows sell out weeks out) and wear shorts, not a long skirt. A first-morning or a weekday-evening slot is the quietest; budget two hours.

About an hour from Tokyo Station on the JR Yokosuka line (around 1,040 yen), then the little Enoden tram to Hase. The Great Buddha is a 13.3m bronze Amida cast in 1252; the hall that once sheltered it was washed away by a tsunami in 1498, and it has stood in the open air ever since. For 50 yen more you can climb inside the hollow statue.

A few minutes downhill from the Buddha, a hillside temple built in tiers up the slope with a terrace that looks out over Kamakura to the sea. The nine-metre, eleven-headed Kannon inside is the draw; in June the hydrangea path needs a separate timed ticket, but the sea view is free with entry year-round.

The pedestrian street running from Kamakura Station toward the main shrine, and where you eat lunch. Look for shirasu (whitebait) served raw or rice-bowled, soft-serve in flavours you won't see at home, and small craft shops between the food stalls. It's elbow-to-elbow on weekends.

Kamakura's grand shrine, at the head of the wide Dankazura approach that Komachi-dori runs parallel to. Free to enter; climb the broad stone steps for the view back down the avenue toward the sea. From here it's a short Enoden hop to the beach at Enoshima if you want to stretch the day to sunset before heading back.