Shinjuku 新宿

Shinjuku is three cities stacked on top of one station. West of the tracks, the skyscraper district rises in orderly blocks around the twin towers of the Metropolitan Government Building, where a free 45th-floor deck gives you Mount Fuji on clear winter evenings. East of the tracks, Kabukicho throws everything at you at once: pachinko halls, host club billboards, a Godzilla head poking over a cinema, and the smell of grilled chicken drifting out of 200-odd shoebox bars in Golden Gai. South, Shinjuku Gyoen opens up as 58 hectares of lawns, greenhouses and a Japanese garden that feels a thousand kilometers from the pedestrian bridges of the station.

The trick is sequencing. Start in the garden before the crowds, cross to the west side for department-store basements and the observation deck at golden hour, then work your way east as the signs switch on. Omoide Yokocho fills by seven, Golden Gai gets going after ten, and the Hanazono Shrine lanterns stay lit for the stragglers. Shinjuku has none of Shibuya’s youthful polish; it is older, louder and more honest, and nobody who spends a night here forgets it.