Most Tokyo itineraries go to photograph a crossing. We spend all five days on the other bank of the river, where Tokyo is still simply living.

The skeleton

  • Day 1 — Arrive; a small inn in Yanaka or Asakusa; the first meal in a covered shopping street
  • Day 2 — Sensoji at six in the morning (the two hours before the crowds are a different temple); afternoon among the old shops — brushes, blades, handmade paper
  • Day 3 — Half a day in an artisan’s workshop: cut glass or indigo dyeing, whichever draws you
  • Day 4 — The Sumida river bus, the old lanes of Fukagawa, coffee in Kiyosumi-Shirakawa
  • Day 5 — A free morning, then the airport

House rules of this journey

No Shibuya, Shinjuku or Ginza. No more than eight thousand steps a day. At the old shops we only show the way — we take no commission.

This is the skeleton of a journey that happened exactly once. Yours will begin from a blank page.

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Shall we draw yours?

Tell us roughly where you want to go, and what you would rather avoid. That is where the line begins.

Begin my journey