Things to do in Tokyo

Tokyo has no single centre. Twenty-three wards ring a palace and a moat, and the Yamanote loop strings the biggest of them together. Each stop feels like a separate town.

What each quarter is for

Things to do in Tokyo are organised by station rather than by district. Pick two neighbouring stops and give them a day.

• Asakusa. Senso-ji, founded in 645 and the oldest temple in the city, behind a gate hung with a giant lantern.
• Shibuya. The crossing, with a rooftop deck above it. Meiji Jingu is ten minutes away, in a forest of a hundred thousand trees planted in 1920.
• Shinjuku. Two drinking alleys left from the 1950s, an imperial garden opened to the public in 1949, and the station Guinness calls the busiest on earth.
• Ginza and Tsukiji. Department stores, and the outer market lanes that stayed when the wholesale trade left in 2018.
• Toyosu. Where that trade went. The tuna auction is watched from a gallery above the floor.
• Sumida. Skytree, six hundred and thirty-four metres, finished in 2012, with old workshops at its foot.
• Ueno and Yanaka. The national museums in a park, and a low-rise quarter of temples and cats behind them.

The city from the air

Helicopters leave from Shin-Kiba on the bay. Ten minutes buys the water and the bridges; twenty adds Skytree, Ginza and Tokyo Station.

An hour and a half goes towards Fuji and back along the coast. Prices are per aircraft, not per head. Splitting it three ways or five changes the sum.

How a guided day is priced

The same Tokyo day is sold three ways. With a guide on public transport, by taxi, or by private car. Cheapest to dearest is roughly threefold.

Food walks run in small groups over five hours or so. They are the cheapest guided thing going here.

Practical

• Two subways. Tokyo Metro and Toei are separate companies with separate fares, so changing between them charges twice. One prepaid card covers both and the JR lines.
• Airports. Haneda is fifteen minutes of train from the south side of town. Narita is an hour, and its fast trains cost real money.
• Last trains. The network shuts around midnight and restarts near five. A taxi after that costs more than the evening did.
• Rush hour. Roughly eight to nine in the morning, when the Yamanote line is not worth attempting.
• Toyosu. The auction starts before dawn and the good deck is balloted a month ahead. The free gallery upstairs needs no booking.
• Seasons. Summer is hot and wet, and August is unpleasant. Late autumn and early spring are the walking months.