Wandering Through Tokyo’s Neighborhoods

Like CDMX, Tokyo is one of those cities that’s impossible to fully explore in a single visit. But, after six weeks of solo travel, reuniting with James gave me a second wind for exploration. We were both determined to experience as much of Tokyo as we could in the few days we had here. I’ve organized this first post based on some of the different neighborhoods we wound up exploring.

Asakusa

Asakusa offered us our very first taste of Tokyo. I read that this neighborhood is known for its traditional charm, and that’s exactly what we encountered here. It ended up being one of our favorite areas for its interesting shops and cafes.

The Imato Shrine is home to the beckoning cats, which are believed to help people find love.

Shibuya

Shibuya, home to the famous “Shibuya scramble crossing”, is a pretty overwhelming part of the city. Full of massive department stores, and even more massive crowds, I found it to be a “small doses” sort of place. My favorite thing to do in Shibuya was to photograph all the cool signage in the early morning before things were open (thanks jetlag!)

Shinjuku

We were originally going to stay in the Shinjuku area, but decided against it last minute. I think that was a good call, as this area is really all about the nightlife, which the jetlag prevented us from participating in. The “golden gai” area had some particularly delightful-looking bars, which I’d like to try on a second visit. (side note: if you’re coming from North America and you like nightlife, I suggest putting Tokyo at the end of your trip instead of the beginning).

Koto

We travelled out to the Koto area, near Odaiba, to visit TeamLabs Planets. This is a uniquely immersive art exhibit where you walk in water, sit in a room full of hanging flowers, and push gigantic bubbles around, among other things.

TeamLabs was an exceedingly cool experience. But, the surrounding neighborhood was pretty out of the way – about 45 minutes by transit – and very industrial. Inexplicably, there were no restaurants, convenient stores, or even public indoor spaces nearby. So, TeamLabs: five stars. Surrounding neighborhood: zero stars. The views from the bridge were pretty great though.

Akihabara Electric Town

Akihabara is the anime and electronics hub in Tokyo. We weren’t sure if we’d be into this area and we almost skipped it, but we wound up really enjoying it. The delightfully retro gaming stuff reminded us of our childhoods. It’s easy to forget how many nostalgic 90s franchises (e.g., Nintendo, Playstation, Pokemon) originated in Japan. In general, all of the character merch in Tokyo wound up being an unexpected highlight for me.

Overall, this city was just as people described it to us: fascinating and modern, busy yet orderly, and absolutely massive. We took the train all over the city, and walked 20k+ steps a day. I hope you enjoyed this taster of some of the stuff we saw. I’ll post about some of our more specific experiences soon!