Tokyo / Ginza

Ginza銀座

The grand boulevard of Tokyo — flagship stores, century-old shops, kabuki, and the quietest side streets of the city after dark.

Ginza was Tokyo's first Western-style street, laid out in brick after the fire of 1872, and it has kept the habit of being first: the first department stores, the first cafés, the first neon. Today it is where the great Japanese houses keep their flagships and where the world's fashion names build their most ambitious architecture — but the reason to walk it slowly is the second storey and the side street. Behind the boulevard are tiny bars that seat six, galleries above stationery shops, a paper store that has sold the same washi since the Edo period, and kabuki twice a day at the Kabukiza. On weekend afternoons the main street closes to cars and becomes a promenade.

One-day itineraries

One day · The whole loop

Around the Yamanote line in a day of eating: soba in Kanda, unagi in Ueno, a tea house in a garden, tempura in Shinjuku, tonkatsu in Meguro and oden in Ebisu

The Yamanote loop takes an hour to ride and a lifetime to eat. This day rides it clockwise from Tokyo Station and gets off six times, once for each meal a body can reasonably hold: soba, unagi, tea, tempura, tonkatsu, oden. Every stop is from our station-by-station guide, verified on the date shown; walk times are from the station gates. Buy a day ticket and eat small.

Akihabara & Kanda · Ueno & Yanaka · Shinjuku · Nakameguro, Daikanyama & Ebisu · Ginza · 7 stops

One day · Ginza

Ginza, dressed up: a department store at the bell, one act of kabuki, a stationery floor, a sushi counter and a bar that knows its whisky

Ginza is where Tokyo goes to be seen behaving well. The day below is the polished version: a department store opening, a single act at the Kabukiza, lunch at a counter where the chef has been slicing for forty years, and an evening in a bar with a hundred bottles behind it. Every stop is a named operator we have checked; two of them need booking, the rest reward showing up on time.

Ginza · 7 stops

One day · Tsukiji, Hama-rikyu, Ginza

A first day in Tokyo: the market at seven, the shogun's garden at nine, Ginza at eleven, kabuki at four

The best first day in Tokyo needs no train. It starts before the city does, at a market that has fed it for a century, and ends in a theatre that has entertained it for four; between them are a tidal garden, a boulevard of architecture, and the kind of lunch counter that makes people plan a second trip. Everything is within two kilometres. Wear shoes you can stand in.

Tsukiji & Toyosu · Ginza · 9 stops

One day · Asakusa, Kappabashi, the Sumida

Asakusa before the crowds: the temple at seven, the kitchen street, and the river down to the shogun's garden

Asakusa is the most visited district in Tokyo and, at seven in the morning, one of the emptiest. This day is built on that hour: the temple to yourself, breakfast in a coffee house from the Showa era, the street where every restaurant in the city buys its knives, and then the river — twelve bridges downstream to a garden the shoguns built on the bay. It ends in Ginza, which is how Tokyo has always ended a day in Asakusa.

Asakusa · Ginza · 8 stops