Hachiko waiting, decade after decade, as ever-denser Shibuya Station crowds are swept across the scramble under booming digital displays.
Shinjuku’s pulse-quickening 24-hour streets, where the stars are outshone by a high-rise haze of hoardings ablaze with temptation.
The refined highs and rowdy lows of Roppongi, Omotesando’s perpetual fashion parade, the caffeinated collector-culture of Nakano, Koenji, and Shimokitazawa.
In the undisputed age of the image, these, and similar sugar-rush snapshots of other well-stomped neighborhoods of central and western Tokyo, form the increasingly-familiar, globally-recognized face of Japan’s 21st century capital.
Venture a little further to the east, however, to the places where, under an older name, Tokyo first broke ground, and the face of the city, while still recognizably metropolitan, often wears a slightly gentler, less frantic expression.
Edo to Tokyo
Edo, which can be translated as “estuary,” started its life, in the late 11th century, as a small settlement at the place where the Sumida River meets Tokyo Bay. After gaining a castle (remnants of which form part of the modern imperial palace) in 1456, the city gradually expanded as far as the site of present-day Hibiya Park and Tokyo Station.
This once-peripheral fishing village became the de facto capital of Japan when in 1603 Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu took up residence in Edo Castle, and, by 1721, with a population of a million, it had become the world’s largest metropolis. When the Emperor Meiji relocated from Kyoto in 1868, the city once known as Edo, became Tokyo, “the Eastern Capital.“
Edo Today
Shitamachi, ostensibly meaning “Low City” is the name given to the easily-flooded regions, close to the Sumida River, where the working people of Edo were likely to be found (with the ‘higher-ups’ living, literally, higher up, in the hillier west of the city). Today these areas of eastern Tokyo, long resistant to voguish upheavals, still retain a distinct and slow-changing atmosphere of steady bustle, that sets them apart from the non-stop hustle of the capital’s better-known regions.
Below is a, necessarily brief, introduction to just some of the areas of eastern Tokyo where visitors can enjoy life in the capital at a slightly different pace.
Ueno
Just across from the rather jumbled and confusing train station surrounds, sits the spacious Ueno Park, presenting plentiful opportunities for fun, leisure and cultural pursuits, in a well-cultivated space with the vibrant and colorful air of a mid-century picture-book. Boasting some of the capital’s finest exhibition spaces, including Le Corbusier’s National Museum of Western Art, and the National Museum of Nature and Science (the most visited museum in Japan), the park also hosts a zoo, an abundance of blossoming sakura trees, and, like a Monet painting come-to-life, the lavishly-lily-padded Shinobazu Pond.
Nearby Ameyokocho offers booze and budget-bling, as well as spices and street-food, in a rousingly ramshackle retail arena that grew out of the city’s post-war black-market.
Asakusa
Visitors to the breathtakingly ornate Sensoji (Tokyo’s oldest established Buddhist temple), will find it hard not to spend a yen or two as they stop to peruse the souvenir baubles of the cheery Nakamise Dori, or surrender themselves to the retro-thrills of the adjacent Hanayashiki amusement park. In the surrounding quarters, scores of rickshaws share street-space with 21st century traffic, and there is much curbside carousing at the lantern-lit izakaya of Hoppy Street.
Very much a river city, Asakusa is criss-crossed by bridges, including the much-traversed Azumabashi with its irresistible panoramic photo-op of the golden flame atop Philippe Starck’s Asahi beer hall and Tokyo Skytree. River-buses run from nearby, offering leisurely cruises down the Sumida River.
Dotted here and there around the streets, are a handful of still-remaining authentic kissaten-style cafés, where cozy glass lampshades and wood paneled walls are impregnated with the aroma of well-roasted coffee, and patrons can slip contentedly into a delightfully 20th century style of relaxation.
Mukojima and Oshiage
Sumida Koen skirts long stretches of the Sumida River, with much of it situated in Mukojima on the opposite bank to Asakusa. Offering an unbeatable full-blossom riot of sakura come springtime, and spectacular views of the fireworks in summer, the park is otherwise a scenic and peaceful sanctuary where herons and turtles can be found sunning themselves by the large ornamental pond.
Situated in the park, and also accessible via the historied Kototoi Bridge, is Ushijima Shrine, miraculous survivor of both the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake and the 1945 American firebombing, which is home to a much-petted statue of an ox, said to help alleviate physical ailments when stroked on the corresponding body-part.
From the park-side banks of the Sumida, beneath the elevated railway, and following the line of the Kitajukken River, is the recently developed Mizumachi complex. An enjoyable amble through this laid-back waterside district of shops, cafés and sporting sites, leads directly to the spectacular, and omnipresent, Tokyo Skytree.
Ryogoku
Visible from the riverside walkway at Ryogoku, the immense green roof of the Kokugikan (National Sports Hall), signals to visitors that they are close to the home of Sumo, the national sport of Japan. Other clues include playful sumo motifs woven into the canary-yellow wrought iron of the nearby Kuramae Bridge, and, in all likelihood, the sight of strapping wrestlers themselves going about their daily business (leaving behind the wonderful sweet aroma of their bintsuke hair oil as they go).
The four-story Sumida Hokusai Museum, designed by the lauded Sejima Kazuyo, houses works by the ‘old man mad about drawing’, who lived much of his life in the area, and left behind many prints depicting this corner of Edo in the 18th and 19th centuries.
The nearby Edo-Tokyo Museum, designed by Kiyonori Kikutake, which is based on the form of a traditional rice storehouse (but also resembles an AT-AT from The Empire Strikes Back), immerses visitors in the history and development of the world’s greatest metropolis. Currently closed for an overhaul, the museum should reopen in spring of 2026.
Kiyosumi Shirakawa
Landscaped to perfection under the watchful eye of Mitsubishi founder Yataro Iwasaki, Kiyosumi Garden is an idyllic urban oasis that plots a gentle course around a lake with three islands, a bridge and a thriving population of koi (carp) and turtles. Boulders, which were selected for their water-worn forms and bought by steamship from across Japan, add characterful points of interest to a nerve-steadying stroll beneath the garden’s 4,000 trees, as well as serving as artfully positioned stepping stones.
A 15-minute stroll from the gardens, located within Kiba Park, is the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. The gallery’s insightful permanent collection includes the post-war creative efforts of domestic and international artists including Yokoo Tadanori, Yoshitomo Nara, Roy Lichtenstein, Gerhard Richter, and a roster of innovatively curated exhibitions means there is always something new to look at.
Having undergone something of a coffee-renaissance, Kiyosumi Shirakawa’s streets now bristle with roasteries and cafés, offering a refreshing break from cultural and horticultural pursuits, and adding new flavor to this out-of-the-way, but eminently visitable, corner of eastern Tokyo.
