Kichijoji 吉祥寺

Kichijoji tops every survey of where Tokyoites would most like to live, and twenty minutes in it explains why. Out of the station’s south exit a shopping street drops straight into Inokashira Park, a pond ringed with cherry trees where couples row swan boats despite the legend that the goddess Benzaiten in the island shrine breaks them up, and where the path continues through the woods to the Ghibli Museum. The north side is dense and commercial: the Sun Road arcade, department stores, and a block called Harmonica Yokocho, a grid of alleys barely a meter wide where black-market stalls became a hundred tiny bars, dumpling counters and a famous wine bar.

Do the park first, on foot, with a coffee from one of the shops on Nanai-bashi street. The museum requires advance tickets sold on the 10th of the previous month and is worth the planning. Then cross back north for the lunch-time queue at Satou, the butcher whose minced-cutlet line is a local institution, before the yokocho fills at five. Kichijoji is suburban in the best sense: unhurried, green and full of people who chose to be here.