Tokyo: The Best Advice Anyone Gave Me Was to Stop Trying to Understand It

Tokyo has roughly 37 million people in its greater metropolitan area, more than 200 Michelin-starred restaurants in the 2026 guide (including 12 at three stars, more than any other city on earth), and a crime rate lower than most mid-sized European cities. It is simultaneously one of the most comfortable and one of the most disorienting places a Western traveller can visit – not because it is hostile, but because the layers of difference run deeper and more consistently than in most places. The person who gave me the best advice before my first visit said: stop trying to understand it and start trying to see it. This is, annoyingly, correct.

Base yourself near one of the Yamanote Line ring-rail stations: Shinjuku, Shibuya, Harajuku-Omotesando, or Ueno (for Asakusa) all work as practical anchors. The train network covers every corner of the city with precision. A Suica or PASMO card – loaded at airport machines or added directly to Apple or Google Wallet before you land – handles every train, metro, bus, and most convenience stores without thinking about it. Load it before navigating Narita or Haneda with bags.

What to See

Senso-ji and Asakusa: Tokyo’s oldest temple, founded in 645. The red Kaminarimon gate with its enormous paper lantern, Nakamise-dori shopping street, and the five-storey pagoda at the back. Visit before 7am for the lantern light still on and a fraction of the crowd. After 10am on a weekend this is genuinely packed.

Meiji Jingu: A great Shinto shrine in a 170-acre forest of cedar and cypress, 10 minutes from Harajuku Station. The woodland walk is genuinely quiet. The contrast between the silence inside the forest and Takeshita-dori’s teen street-fashion chaos directly adjacent is jarring in a way that is worth experiencing as a single visit.

Shibuya Crossing: The most photographed pedestrian intersection in the world. Best photographed from the window seats at the Starbucks above Tsutaya books, or from the Shibuya Sky observation deck on top of Shibuya Scramble Square. Most photogenic at dusk on a weekday when the office workers add to the tourist volume.

teamLab Planets TOKYO in Toyosu: a barefoot, knee-deep wading, immersive digital-art installation that attracted over 2.5 million visitors in 2025. It is more focused and more consistently interesting than the teamLab Borderless iteration at Azabudai Hills. Book online well in advance – weekends, cherry blossom season, and Golden Week sell out two to three weeks ahead. The 9am first entry slot is the least crowded. Standard adult entry is around JPY 3,800.

Golden Gai in Shinjuku: roughly 200 tiny bars, each seating 6 to 10 people, in a cluster of narrow alley buildings that survived the postwar redevelopment which replaced most of old Shinjuku. Many bars have cover charges and house rules about photography and minimum orders. Choose one bar, sit at the counter, order what the person next to you has, and talk to whoever is there. The bars close when the last person wants to leave.

Shibuya Parco (the architectural retailing complex, rebuilt and reopened 2019) has a basement of small restaurants and a sixth-floor gallery programme that has attracted serious international artists. Worth a walk through independent of shopping.

Where to Eat

Tsukiji Outer Market: The wholesale fish auction moved to Toyosu in 2018, but the outer market of retail shops and prepared food vendors remained and is now if anything better curated than before. Arrive before 9am for tamago skewers (sweet rolled omelette on a stick), fresh uni on rice from one of the seafood stalls, and tuna in various preparations. After 11am the best things have been eaten.

Ichiran Ramen: Hakata-style tonkotsu ramen served in single-occupancy wooden booths where you submit your preferences – broth richness, garlic, spice, firmness of noodles – on a paper form through a slot in the booth wall. The isolation is not antisocial; it is a system designed for focused attention on the bowl. The ramen is excellent and the booth design is worth experiencing as a piece of functional thinking.

Den in Gaienmae holds two Michelin stars and has been ranked the best restaurant in Asia. Head chef Zaiyu Hasegawa takes kaiseki traditions seriously enough to know which rules he is breaking and why. The menu is inventive and at points genuinely funny – the chef has been known to arrive at your table mid-service with a box labelled “DFC: Den Fried Chicken.” Book months ahead.

Depachika – the food halls in the basement floors of major department stores – are among the most interesting food spaces in the city. Isetan Shinjuku and Takashimaya Nihonbashi have world-class prepared foods, pastry sections, imported goods, and prepared meals of a quality that surprises people used to equivalents elsewhere. This is where Tokyo’s professional class does a significant portion of its food shopping.

The convenience stores (7-Eleven, Lawson, FamilyMart) are legitimately good for breakfast and late-night: onigiri, sandwiches, hot nikuman from the steamer, excellent coffee. This is not a compromise option; it is simply what good convenience retail looks like.

Where to Stay

Park Hyatt Tokyo in Shinjuku (the Lost in Translation hotel) has panoramic city views from floor 41 up, and on clear winter mornings a direct line of sight to Fuji. The lobby bar is worth a drink regardless of whether you are staying. Hotel Gracery Shinjuku has a scale Godzilla head on the roof above the eighth floor, which is either a reason to stay or avoid depending entirely on your relationship to Godzilla. For more traditional accommodation and lower prices, the Yanaka neighbourhood near Nippori Station has small guesthouses in older buildings.

Day Trips

Kamakura (1 hour south by train) has the Great Buddha of Kotoku-in – an 11.3-metre bronze Amida Buddha cast in 1252 and now sitting in the open air after its hall was destroyed by a tsunami in the 15th century – and several excellent Zen temples. Nikko (2 hours north) has the extravagant Toshogu Shrine, over-decorated in a way that is the deliberate opposite of Japanese minimalism and worth seeing for that alone. Hakone (90 minutes west) has onsen, the Hakone Open Air Museum, and, on clear days, unobstructed Fuji views from Owakudani.

Practical Notes

Do not tip anywhere: not at restaurants, not at hotels, not in taxis. Tipping is not a part of the system and causes confusion. Do not eat while walking in public streets (food courts and outdoor festival stalls are the clear exceptions). Remove shoes when entering homes, traditional restaurants, and shrines; look for the genkan entry area as your cue. The train stations at Shinjuku (50+ exits) and Shibuya (redeveloped and reorganised in 2023 but still confusing) are the most genuinely disorienting physical structures in the city. Allow 10 extra minutes when navigating them for the first time.