5 days in Tokyo, told via Google Maps reviews (part 1/4, 37 reviews)
I recently went to Japan for an unbelievably excellent 3-week holiday! Here’s the first location visited, Tokyo’s Asakusa, told via 37 Google Maps reviews (well, some are TripAdvisor).
Note: This is a series of posts, with Tokyo Part 1 (this article, 22nd-27th August), Takayama Part 2, Kyoto Part 3, and Tokyo Part 4.
Day 1: Arrival & Asakusa
We arrived in Tokyo at an impressively early 7am after a 14-hour flight to 38° weather, so our jetlag and exhaustion levels were immense!
Despite this, our wandering around Asakusa both before our hotel’s check-in time, and then after a much-needed nap, resulted in 13,441 steps (5.84 miles).
Onyado Nono Asakusa ★★★★★
We had an excellent experience at Onyado Nono! The breakfast is the highlight feature, with an impressive variety of Japanese and Western options available, all freshly made.
Rooms are small but clean, with tatami mats throughout. Shoes are always stored in a locker area by the entrance, with comfortable loungewear & slippers provided in rooms. At breakfast, typically 50-90% of people will be wearing the beige loungewear, I recommend it!
Staff are helpful and very friendly, with standard laundry facilities available on the 2nd floor (plus tracking of them via the TV!). This made it a convenient place to do laundry on our trip.
Age.3 ★★★★★
Age.3 is a strange innovation on sandwiches, with their sweet ones ending up something like cream-filled waffles. Worth a visit if nearby, although I’d recommend sharing 1 since they’re pretty sweet!
Sensō-ji Hozomon Gate ★★★★✰
Whilst the gate is overly full of tourists during the day, at night it becomes an excellent place to walk through. Unfortunately there is only a small amount of information available (entirely about the 2 statues), with the gate serving primarily as a photo opportunity and little else.
Sensō-ji Five-Storied Pagoda ★★★★✰
As with most temples in the Senso-ji area, it is far better to visit at night for the visuals. Tourists are not allowed inside, and there is nothing to do here besides looking from the outside.
Sensō-ji Temple ★★★★✰
The main part of the Senso-ji complex, good luck making it past all the tourists during the day! Worth visiting, you’ll occasionally see locals making a contribution during open hours.
Kaminari mon ★★★✰✰
Technically part of the Senso-ji temple, the close proximity to Nakamise shopping street makes this perhaps the most touristy part of the entire complex. You’ll see tourists taking tripod photos / selfies at pretty much any hour, and during the day there is a dense crowd here. I’d highly recommend moving 100m up the road to Sensi-ji’s Hozomon Gate for a bigger and better gate, with fewer people!
Nakamise shopping street ★★★✰✰
This street features a variety of fairly touristy foods, drinks, and souvenirs. This street is completely full of people during the day, with lots of options for (overpriced) snacks from small shops where around half only accept cash. If you need to go through here I highly recommend using the 2 side streets.
At night the street gains a very peaceful vibe, with artwork on lots of the shop’s shutters.
Okimaro ★★★★★
This small cafe-style restaurant serving Okinawan was a pleasant surprise after struggling to find somewhere to eat a casual lunch near the Tokyo Skytree.
Around 10 people can be seated, and I’d highly recommend getting in before 12. We arrived at 11:50, and by 12:10 every seat was full of salarymen clearly having their regular lunches!
The portions are large, and whilst there is an excellent value lunch set menu available we went for a grilled chicken bowl and a limited-quantity pork belly based meal, along with a banana milk drink. An english menu is available out front, as well as inside.
Gong Cha Asakusa ROX ★★★✰✰
A standard bubble / fruit tea shop, inside the ROX mall. It had quite a loud and chaotic vibe, clearly being a brief stop for families during shopping trips.
Hoppy Street ★★★✰✰
Pretty much just a tourist trap, walking down here at night will see you shouted at by various touts, with far more affordable / genuine izakayas available elsewhere. If you’re here at night, I’d recommend walking through senso-ji instead.
Sumida Park ★★★★✰
A good spot for a brief rest if travelling from Asakusa towards the Skytree. Some shade, limited seating, and standard toilet facilities. The strip of shops alongside can be useful.
Asakusa Gyukatsu ★★★★★
One of the best meals we had during a few weeks in Japan! There is almost always a queue outside, however late at night you can get in fairly quickly, with your order taken whilst queueing. The only options are 1, 1.5, or 2 beef cutlets, so picking should be easy!
Once inside, you are quickly served a tray of tonkatsu, and your cooking slab is heated. The beef cutlets are somehow ridiculously tasty and melt apart in your mouth, with the final few minutes of cooking yourself mostly just tweaking the flavour.
Helpfully, a guide on how to use each item / dip is provided in front of you in English and Japanese, since it can get a little confusing (there’s a small mochi dessert included). We ordered 1 cutlet each, I’d probably recommend 1.5.
Day 2: Ginza
Our first full day in Tokyo focused on the Tsukiji / Ginza area, making our way from the riverfront to Tokyo Station (with lots of shops along the way) resulted in 23,018 steps (10.70 miles).
Tsukiji Outer Market ★★★★✰
This chaotic market is unique, and has plenty to offer even if you have no interest in seafood. It’s hard to know exactly which shops you’re buying from, so you’ll have to rely on instinct instead or reviews!
Whilst here we had matcha shaved ice, a custard dessert slab, and glazed fruit, all of which were great. The inner market is mostly fish, with the outer market consisting of more standard snacks and drinks. It’s a BIG area, and finding a past shop can be tricky so just buy anything you like the look of!
It can get very crowded here, with some of the smaller alleyways being impossible to get down if a larger family or eating tour group is currently in there. The main roads and outside are easily navigated though, note many will only accept cash however.
TEATRO eFfe TOKYO ★★★✰✰
A very sweet cream soda and matcha latte, plus fairly high prices and an enforced 1-drink-per-person policy (even when completely empty) makes the store hard to recommend if you’re just after a drink. However, it does have good air con and is in a convenient location.
Hamarikyu Gardens ★★★★★
A good way to spend a few hours, with the small entry fee ensuring it’s a quiet and peaceful contrast to the nearby Tsukiji market.
The Shonoji Isle bridges are great for photos, with the duck hunting sites providing some interesting information on how ducks were historically trapped here (it includes trained decoys!). The 300-year old pine is also impressively gnarled, whilst the Shogun’s Landing Place is a fairly bland concrete area.
A special shoutout for the “rest area” is needed, since the shaded zone with sprayed water vapour (and a nearby drink seller) was absolutely essential when visiting on a summer day.
Overall it’s a very aesthetic and well maintained garden area, providing contrast from the busy city nearby.
Marutake ★★★★✰
This popular cash-only shop primarily sells warm tamago (sweet egg omelette), with a small strip costing 200 yen. Whilst nice, it’s not particularly unique (there’s another shop on the same street). There’s no eating area, so you’ll need to stand in the busy & chaotic street.
Tomago-to-watashi ★★✰✰✰
Small restaurant within the station selling omurice (fluffy egg pancake with rice). The “soufflé” version was better, but both were fairly basic yet expensive meals. We struggled to get noticed when trying to make an order, with staff members seemingly initially avoiding us due to being foreigners, however there was an English menu available.
Ginza Itoya ★★★★✰
A multi-level stationary store, even if you’re not particularly into arts & crafts it’s intriguing seeing all the options available. The ground floor is a bit too busy, and it can be hard to navigate.
Ippudo Asakusa ★★★★★
Great ramen, fast service, order is via a touchscreen making it easy for foreigners. Ippudo was one of the few places open late at night, a lucky find!
Careful of the spicy ramen, they really mean spicy.
Day 3: Mt Fuji & Hakone
The entire day was taken up with a trip to Mt Fuji and Hakone, with lots of travel time resulting in only 7,339 steps (2.62 miles).
Mt Fuji / Hakone tour ★★★★★
This day trip exceeded our expectations! Whilst there was a fair amount of travelling on the bus, this time was used very productively by Aya (with Yamasan driving) to educate about Japan, Mt Fuji, a few Japanese words, and much more.
A brief warning about the meeting point at Shinjuku, there are multiple groups meeting here at once (including multiple from Japan Panoramic Tours), so get there a little early and listen carefully to the groups. We had a few people looking for a Tokyo bus tour getting a bit confused!
Our first main stop, Mt Fuji 5th station, was unexpectedly very busy with hikers, making it tricky to do much there in the allotted time besides buying a few souvenirs and seeing a viewpoint. It was unfortunately cloudy when we visited, so it was a little surreal being surrounded by grey nothingness!
Lunch was a weak point, with a very average “buffet” provided at a strange ninja experience / scenic garden / restaurant hybrid called Shinobi No Sato. At least there was a good shop and the garden was pleasant to walk around.
The ropeway was busier than normal so we had to change plans slightly here, with Aya and another guide impressively changing the itinerary on the fly (including rebooking boats etc) to ensure we still got to do everything. The changed plan was arguably better, with a flyover of the sulfur mines now included, a very alien sight.
Finally, the cruise after the ropeway was excellent! The scenery was breathtaking, and on a hot day the breeze was a welcome break. The boat did a 180 after departing the dock, so our average position at the back became an excellent view forward!
Throughout the day, Aya was informative, friendly, funny and energetic. She had far more patience than I would have with people wandering off, with an early incident disciplined with lighthearted and effective brief teasing instead of anything more dramatic. Aya also made an effort to get not just a group photo at the end, but also take photos for couples at multiple opportunities.
It was truly impressive how she managed to coordinate everyone, and provide information throughout, whilst still finding the time to talk to every group (usually couples) individually about their travel plans, Japan experience, etc. She provided us with some excellent restaurant and vintage shopping recommendations (and local slang!) in her native Osaka, many of which we utilised later in our trip.
I highly recommend the tour, and can’t thank Aya enough!
Day 4: Ueno & Akihabara
A fairly meandering (and very hot!) day around Ueno then Akihabara, resulting in 16,778 steps (6.73 miles).
Shinobazu Pond Bentendo ★★★★★
A surprisingly pleasant small temple surrounded by a lotus flower pond (with turtles!), very quiet in the mornings. The inside is fairly typical for a temple, peaceful and visually appealing. You can also buy small blessings and similar items.
Kanazawa Maimonzushi Ueno ★★★★★
This made-to-order sushi restaurant is hidden away on the top floor of the mall, we only found it by following a hungry-looking salaryman!
After registering our group size (2) on the iPad out front, after a few minutes of waiting we were given a table at the counter. Here, we could watch the chefs selecting fish cuts, make ourselves hot green tea, and order dishes from the iPad.
Each “group” is separated by a plastic transparent barrier, so you can use their dishes for inspiration if needed whilst still having your own private space. Dishes are typically passed directly from the chefs in front of you, or sometimes via a waiter behind you, but there’s no conveyer belt we could see.
The dishes themselves were good, perhaps not quite as good as elsewhere but hard to complain for the price. A few were unreasonably oversized making them a challenge to eat, be careful!
Onitsuka Tiger Parco_ya Ueno ★★★★★
We visited 4-5 different Onitsuka Tiger stores during our trip, and this was consistently the quietest! Whilst others were chaotic and even had queues out front, this slightly less obvious location meant there were as many staff as customers.
Staff were helpful despite missing some items of stock, and the completely open store layout makes it a far better shopping experience than most footwear stores.
Super Potato ★★★★✰
Super Potato felt like something from another world. After taking the lift up to the top floor, each floor had a different unique vibe. Some had a few guys hanging around playing arcade games, others were more like a small sweet shop, others were more like museums.
I can’t comment on prices, but it was great seeing thousands of retro games and tech scattered everywhere, although the narrow corridors made it hard to navigate sometimes.
Edion Akiba ★★★★✰
This store has so much variety! Going up the escalators, you’ll start with a massive variety of anime / gaming related figures, then go through watches, then wine, then microwaves, and suddenly you’re surrounded by trading cards or a car racing track.
The top floor had trading card vending machines for various games, plus a few guys playing a game near the drinks vending machine, and it had a very calm and peaceful vibe. I can easily imagine spending a few hours here playing a card game with friends.
The car racing track wasn’t open when I visited, but it seems to be frequently used, with all the related accessories sold nearby too.
Gachapon hall ★★★✰✰
A very dense gachapon hall. Machines are stacked high, and more than a couple of customers (plus members of staff emptying machines) makes it a challenge to make any progress looking at them all. Other locations have far more space, although perhaps less variety.
The machines are an OK price, with a change dispenser situated in the middle of the hall, employee desk in the middle, and figurine sales at the back.
GiGO Akihabara 2 ★★★✰✰
Quite a poorly laid out and expensive GiGO, mostly consisting of claw machines, many of which have bizarre items like household stools.
Uniqlo Asakusa ★★★★★
A large, well laid out Uniqlo with multiple floors. There’s plenty of appealing t-shirts here, plus of course the essential Airism polo / shirt / underwear for hot summers.
Sumo Entertainment Show ★★★★★
This isn’t a serious sumo show, nor is it trying to be. It’s fun entertainment for tourists, and so long as you know what you’re getting into, you’ll have a great time!
After a short geisha show (fairly authentic as far as I can tell, it was just a much shorter version of a genuine performance seen in Kyoto), there’s a typical hotpot meal provided, with free food refills (and paid drinks) available via a QR code mobile website. A presenter explains what’s happening (in native English) throughout.
Those on the front seats will then have their tables taken away for the main event: Sumo! The 2 wrestlers are obviously playing characters, with all the pantomime “cheer for your guy, boo the other guy” style encouragement you’ll recognise from other family-friendly entertainment. There’s a bit of slapstick entertainment throughout, and the sumo wrestlers sell it well!
After showcasing some basic moves and pushes, the wrestlers have a “real” fight (with the audience throwing in the traditional salt). This looked convincing, but it’s hard to tell as an outsider.
Next up is some audience participation! 6 or so candidates from ~10 volunteers were chosen, with ages ranging from 13 to late 40s. Whilst there’s clearly been some behind-the-scenes coaching on what’s going to happen, making these scripted fights, they’re chaotic fun with lots of audience cheering throughout.
During our show, an Australian rules football player SEEMED to genuinely win his battle with pushing power! At the very least, the brief surprised shout from the losing wrestler was real. The wrestlers themselves deserve extra credit for their physical AND comedic performances.
Finally, you’ll get a chance to take a photo with the wrestlers (and geisha), handled via efficient turn-based coordination, and be given a branded tote bag with branded wooden boxes, stickers, scarves, and your photos.
Overall this was a very fun couple of hours in the evening, and a great way to experience a heavily compacted (and simplified) slice of Japanese culture.
Day 5: Odaiba
A day spent exploring Tokyo’s reclaimed island “Odaiba”, a slightly surreal area that feels far more artificial and unnatural than the rest of Tokyo. There’s a convenient monorail, however we still managed 14,684 steps (6.41 miles).
Small Worlds Museum ★★★★★
Small Worlds was one of our best experiences in Tokyo, consisting of tens of extremely detailed miniature scenes. There’s a very whimsical seamless blending of fact and fiction, making it not at all unusual to see a bizarre monster next to historically accurate architecture! Note that the entrance is somewhat hidden, being a few minutes walk from a monorail station on the opposite side of the “Under Armour” building.
The first few rooms consist of both nature and urban landscapes, alongside a heavy focus on space exploration and construction. Scattered throughout are buttons that activate a variety of sounds, lights, and movements within the landscapes. For example, one button might make a car navigate around a cityscape, another might make a monster appear, another might make a bizarre domestic scene play out.
Next up, there’s a “guest creator” area, consisting of more modest creations such as sections of rail, individual shops and cottages, or fictional locations. Information is provided on who created each item, and some can even be purchased directly.
Following on, there’s a full-scale airport! This includes a real life departure lounge, departure boards, announcements, security cameras, plus of course a miniature airport including planes taking off and landing. This area can be viewed from multiple angles, and the extreme attention to detail is stunning. No matter what bizarre angle you peek inside a nondescript building, it will be fully detailed throughout, even if it seems impossible that anyone else has looked exactly where you are.
Finally, there is a significant area dedicated to fictional anime locations and characters, specifically Evangelion. We didn’t spend much time here, but an entire city appearing and disappearing from the ground (with day night cycle) was truly impressive, even more so due to the button-triggered actions working in bright light and pitch blackness accordingly.
There are also a few final amenities, such as the ability to purchase a 3D print of yourself (with a multiple week waiting time), a typical souvenir shop with a photobooth etc, a cafe, and a workshop where you can see employees creating both the digital and physical objects necessary. It was a unique experience being able to peek at a 3D printer and see an upcoming attraction being created in real time, or watching a clearly skilled and experienced employee researching the geometry needed.
It’s clear throughout that every person involved in creating these models cares significantly about their art, and do their absolute best to create something far higher quality than you might expect given the scale. Despite this, there are no glass / plastic barriers, instead relying on trust to prevent any theft / vandalism to the easily-touchable models.
I’d recommend coming at opening time, as even an hour later the empty rooms become a bit more crowded, making it harder to see full vistas at once, or activate a button without knowing what will happen.
Rinkai Disaster Prevention ★★★★★
A surprisingly detailed educational centre focusing on disaster recovery.
There are regular “tours”, with a Japanese-only guide explaining around 5 minutes of preamble before iPads in multiple languages are thankfully provided, followed by 5 minutes more Japanese-only information that apparently isn’t essential!
This tour recreates a real disaster, consisting of being stuck in a lift during an earthquake, escaping through a mall, then making your way around dramatic destroyed architecture. Progress is made by scanning QR codes in each area and answering quiz questions on your iPad, although scanning these codes is a little unreliable and require a few retries.
Throughout, practical and sobering information about exactly what to do during a natural disaster is provided. After the convincing “tour”, there are multiple rooms with extremely high levels of detail around preparing and surviving a disaster. This includes things like how to help blind people, what to do about contact lenses, how to conserve water, and literally dozens of other topics.
Hidden away in a corner is an area where Tokyo’s real disaster management room can be seen (also featured in a recent Godzilla film), a key location when any disaster hits. It’s quite rare to be able to see this crucial infrastructure, and is augmented by information around how this area is protected, what plans would be enacted during a disaster, motivations behind design, etc.
The entire area is suitable for children, yet engaging and practical for adults, and whilst in the small shop afterwards we saw multiple school trips entering.
Unicorn Gundam ★★★★✰
It’s a big Gundam statue! Easy to take photos of, easy to spot, somewhat bizarre.
Gyukatsu Kyoto Katsugyu ★★★★★
We ended up here after other lunch plans fell through, and we’re very glad they did! A high quality gyukatsu restaurant despite the mall location, with decent prices and some interesting drinks (matcha beer? matcha soda?).
It can be a little crowded and noisy in here at lunchtime (although no wait on a weekday), but the food is excellent enough that it’s worth it. I’d recommend getting the larger than smallest beef option, since there are plenty of toppings that you’ll want to use up.
Statue of Liberty - Odaiba ★★★★✰
A smaller clone of NYC’s Statue of Liberty, with a metropolis backdrop, on an artificial island in Tokyo? Sure, why not. Can be viewed from the nearby mall.
TOKYO CRUISE ★★★★✰
This is a great way to get from Odaiba to Asakusa, taking a scenic cruise up the Sumida River. I recommend purchasing tickets online beforehand, and don’t worry if the QR code doesn’t show up, the ticket inspector somehow uses NFC to scan it!
During summer the waiting area isn’t too appealing, with limited shade and (on some days) no inside waiting area despite needing to get there early. Once on the boat there’s a bit of a rush for seats, although they’re all strange and spaced out, with most inexplicably facing inside the boat instead of at the actual views.
Some drinks (e.g. coffee) are offered onboard, and I believe there’s an open air viewing platform that we didn’t visit. It’s a smooth and peaceful journey, worth doing just for the unique novelty of it.
Hatoya Asakusa ★★★★✰
A quite busy place to get the matcha-est desserts we found! The brownie is excellent, and the mochi-esque balls are quite good too, although all require a strong tolerance of matcha tastes.
There are a few standing places in the fairly small shop.
Gonpachi ★★★✰✰
This 2-story restaurant was one of the most tourist-y restaurants we accidentally visited in Tokyo, with around 2/3 of the guests upstairs clearly being non-Japanese. When we visited it was almost entirely full, and whilst the (somewhat expensive) food and drink was tasty, the overcrowded and noisy ambience upstairs combined with slow and inconsistent service made it hard to enjoy.
I don’t recommend the soba noodles, however the zenzai is a surprisingly tasty dessert. Despite this, if you get lucky with seats (or go earlier than dinner!) it becomes noticeably better, offering an excellent view of the river.
Conclusion
Despite the nearly 40 reviews across 5 days here, tens of small shops or locations that consist of multiple smaller destinations aren’t included! Due to our mixture of planned and unplanned Tokyo exploration, there are plenty of places that I may even have a photo of… yet can’t identify. For example, good luck figuring out any of the tiny shop’s names in Tsukiji Outer Market.
Tokyo is so dense and varied that walking down almost any alley or sideroad will reveal a restaurant or shop worth visiting, and this is especially true when moving even 100 metres away from a touristy attraction, or on a day trip nearby. Ultimately, wandering is never a waste of time, so make sure to leave plenty of gaps and flexible time in any schedule! This is especially true when visiting during summer, this trip covered the 22nd-27th August with temperatures consistently 35°C+.
The size and population of Tokyo means that no matter how thoroughly you explore an area, you can come back at another time of day and it will feel completely different, let alone another time of year. For example, despite walking back to our hotel every evening, the location we came from or the exact time / day completely changed the vibe. One day there might be a film crew outside for unknown reasons, another salarymen on their way home, and another completely silent and empty.
I hope I get a chance to come back here during winter, although there are still so, so many new places I want to visit in Japan (and the world!), it’s impossible to choose yet! This concludes the first part of four posts containing reviews from Japan, it was a very busy 3 weeks.