Asakusa 浅草

Asakusa is the Tokyo that survived. Senso-ji, founded in 645, was rebuilt after the 1945 firebombing, and the neighborhood around it kept the low-rise, shop-house layout of the old merchant city when most of Tokyo went vertical. Nakamise-dori, the 250-meter approach from the Kaminarimon gate, has sold rice crackers, folding fans and sweet bean pastries to pilgrims for three centuries and still does, now to the rhythm of rickshaw pullers in split-toe boots calling out to tourists. Behind the main hall, Hanayashiki is Japan’s oldest amusement park, and the streets west of it hold geisha houses, a 1950s cinema strip and the tempura restaurants that have fried the same recipe for five generations.

The temple is crowded and extraordinary at the same time, so time it. Come at dawn when the courtyard belongs to locals and pigeons, or after seven when the lanterns go on and the shuttered stalls of Nakamise reveal painted murals. Then walk ten minutes to Kappabashi for knives and ceramics, cross the Azumabashi bridge for the view of Skytree over the Asahi building’s golden flame, and finish with a beer in the standing bars of Hoppy-dori.