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Asakusa is a mostly pedestrian section of Tokyo with various stores, restaurants, souvenir shops, etc. At the northern end of Asakusa is the Senso-ji temple, a large complex with food stands, cherry trees and various buildings.
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In this fancy shopping area you can see many women dressed in traditional kimono, as well as others dressed to impress in modern styles. They have all the luxury brands in this neighborhood.
The 8th floor of Mitsukoshi men’s department store building has a sneaker museum, hospital, and shop. If you have sneakers that need sprucing up, or want a special pair, it’s a neat place to see.
Several interesting areas to visit include the viewing deck on Nanzen-ji Sanmon Gate (600 yen), the aqueduct (free), and the Hojo Hall and Garden (600 yen). If you only pick one of these, visit the Hojo Hall and Garden further east into the complex (google map) (there is another garden on the south side that also charges admission). You take off your shoes and walk around in socks or slippers through the wood halls viewing beautiful dry gardens, meeting and prayer rooms, and a large number of screens painted in the 17th century (some are recent replicas due to decay). Unfortunately, they don’t permit photos in most of Hojo Hall and Garden, so we don’t have any pictures of the amazing screens, rooms or most of the gardens.
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The upper floors also had a movie theater and a planetarium that featured music and a light show. There were funky egg-shaped seats and advertisements for different symphonic pairings. Without tickets, we walked into the space, checked out some of the chairs and lights, visited the gift shop, and noted those waiting for a concert/show to start.
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We also stopped to buy tea at one of the Mariage Freres stores. This French tea shop is great and some of their teas are only available at their stores (not resellers–and even their small outposts, such as those in the food courts of major department stores, do not carry all the teas). Our favorite, Surabaya, is a roiboos tea with floral notes and is only sold at their main stores. COVID-era shipping difficulties meant that they were very low on our tea!! We bought the last 100 grams they had and hope the Kyoto outpost has more. There are three free-standing stores in Tokyo (Ginza, Shinjuku, Aoyama) and many, smaller in-department store outposts. There are also Mariage Freres in Kyoto, Kobe, Osaka, Nagoya and Yokohama.
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Cute store in a residential neighborhood–with an amazing collection of old toys from around the world. If you like vintage toys it would be worth a stop.
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This museum is located in Ueno park, where a number of other museums are located (including the Ueno Royal Museum, the University Art Museum, National Museum of Nature and Science, Shitamachi Museum, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, National Museum of Western Art and Ueno Zoo) Well curated history of Tokyo on second floor. On first floor, various interactive exhibits regarding Japanese crafts – for example, you can make your own woodblock print and touch samurai armor. Additionally, museum specialists recreate old crafts and show it’s done on many videos and posters.
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*Tip: Click on activity titles to view on external websites.
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Small museum built in 2017 to showcase some of Kusama’s works. It takes maybe 20-30 minutes to go through the museum. When we went, it mostly contained paintings from the last 20 years plus an interesting interactive exhibit with blacklights. A few sculptures. The museum is in a residential area that doesn’t have many other attractions. Probably only worth going to if you a Kusama fanatic.
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Senso-ji in Asakusa. One of the largest temple complexes in Tokyo at the north end of Asakusa. Beautiful to visit both during the day and at night when various buildings are lit up.
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Various lights shows during December to February. We saw two – one extending about a kilometer on Marunouchi-dori and the second at the end of Marunouchi-dori, at the Tokyo Midtown Hibiya (a multistory food court) and officially called Hibiya Magic Time Illumination. In addition, there is a smaller light display at the Park View Garden, on the 6th floor of Tokyo Midtown Hibiya.
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This was an interesting neighborhood to explore. It’s mostly fashion but there are also a lot of other funky shops, particularly in the alleys. Get off the main streets ASAP – there are many alleys connected to the main street – and wander through high fashion, second-hand, bespoke and many other types of clothing shops. Also, shops like Kiddy Land (anything to do with anime and various beloved imaginary animals; note this is actually on a main street) and various perfumeries, cafes, custom-made furniture and ceramics shops, and of course lots of restaurants.
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This shrine is located in the Akasaka region of Tokyo. It’s kind of hidden away and surrounded by government buildings and hotels (in particular, the Capitol Hotel Tokyu) but it’s a lovely wooded area.
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This fun market occurs every Saturday and Sunday from 10 AM – 4 PM. There are a variety of vendors selling fresh produce, baked goods and various preserved food. There are also about a half dozen food trucks serving everything from chicken skewers to coffee to tacos. This market is close to Harajuku.
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Kyu Asakura House (aka Former Asakura house)
This house and garden was built in 1919 by a wealthy Tokyo family and is one of the few buildings in central Tokyo that predates the Great Kanto Earthquake. It has many good examples of Taisho architecture, building techniques and materials. Note that google maps gives the wrong location for the entrace – map to “Hillside Terrace Annex A” (29-21 Sarugakucho, Shibuya, Tokyo, 150-0033). Cost is 100 yen/person.
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This interactive museum is fun for all ages. There are lots of photos on social media and this is one of the cases where the actual experience lives up to the hype. Wear pants that you can roll up to your knees and prepare to take shoes and socks off (and put in a locker).
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Harijuku Shopping
We found some great stuff by wandering, but what we really wanted was to see the loclas dressed–like the harijuku style. On our way to the MilkFed brand store, we found what we were looking for in the Laforet shopping mall. If you go to the basement level there are several stores catering to the female old-fashioned style.
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There are definitely animal rights problems at some of these cafes. We went to an otter cafe in Harijuku. One little otter was clearly traumatized in a small indoor cage alone. Otters are very smart and social. Most of them seemed happy enough in their outdoor cages, waiting to scream for food from humans who pay for fish by the cup. We got some otter time in an indoor pen, and 2 of the 3 otters slept mostly and the third was convinced (with food) to come onto our laps by the handler. We enjoyed interacting with the otters but it also made us a bit sad to see how they are contained. The hedgehogs here–well, they are handled all day and these little guys are nocturnal, so you do the figuring on how happy that makes them. Maybe a dog or cat cafe is more humane?
There are also several gardens, including a plum (Japanese apricot) grove (plums bloom between early February and late March), several dry gardens and the relatively recently built Seiryu-en garden, which is used to receive foreign dignitaries. There are two teahouses located in Seiryu-en – Waraku-an serves tea and sweets, while Koun-tei is a reservation-only teahouse that serves breakfast in the summer and lunch in the winter. When we tried to go to Koun-tei to make reservations, we were intercepted by an employee who wouldn’t let us near the teahouse and also wouldn’t tell us how to get reservations. After some research, we found that the meals are provided by Isobe, a Kyoto cuisine restaurant near Maruyama Park and Yasaka-jinja. Although several articles indicated one could make reservations online for Koun-tei, we determined that only an in-person visit (or maybe a phone call) was likely to work. Admission to Nijo-jo is 1300 yen per person for adults.
1. Select "Japanese Yen" In the "From" box.
2. Select your native currency in the "To" box. For example, US residents will select "US Dollar".
3. Type in the Yen amount you would like to convert into the "Amount" box. For example, if you would like to know how many US Dollars are in 500 Yen, type "500".
4. The conversation rate will display at the bottom of the gray box.
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Tip: By putting "US Dollar" in the "From" box instead, you can find out how many Japanese Yen are in a dollar. (The current exchange rate is around 140 Yen for every US Dollar.)
