Tokyo, Layer by Layer

Touch down, clear customs and make your way to your accommodation in or around Asakusa. The area sits on the Ginza and Asakusa subway lines, making it a clean launchpad for the whole trip. Dump your bags, freshen up and head out.

A short walk from Asakusa's main drag, this intimate gallery holds the extraordinary puppet figures and production materials of Kawamoto Kihachiro, the master NHK animator whose work bridges Bunraku theatre and stop-motion film. It's a genuinely unusual way to start a Tokyo visit — quiet, crafted, and unlike anything else in the neighbourhood.

Settle into dinner at Miyako, a neighbourhood restaurant whose menu leans on careful, seasonal Japanese cooking. After a long travel day this is exactly the right pace — unhurried, flavour-forward and restorative.

End your first evening at Kurokan, a bar that carries the kind of low-lit, wood-and-smoke atmosphere that Tokyo does better than almost anywhere. It's a gentle introduction to the city's izakaya-adjacent drinking culture — order whatever the person next to you is having.

An underrated stop near the Imperial Palace perimeter, the JMA's public exhibition space explains how Japan monitors earthquakes, typhoons and volcanic activity — all forces that have literally shaped the country's culture and architecture. Free to enter and genuinely informative without being dry.

A short transit hop brings you to fermata, a restaurant that approaches its menu with the same precision a musician brings to a score — ingredients sourced with intention, composed with care. A strong midday meal to fuel an afternoon of Ueno culture.

The orange-and-white lattice tower remains one of Tokyo's most satisfying viewpoints — partly for the panorama itself, partly because you can trace exactly where you've been and where you're going next. The surrounding Shiba Park area is a pleasant contrast to the tower's vertical drama.

Inogey is a long-standing Tokyo dining room known for its careful Japanese cooking — the kind of place that regulars return to for years. Order broadly and take your time; this is neighbourhood food at its most dependable.

Otama is exactly the kind of Ueno-adjacent sake and small-plate bar that doesn't try to be anything other than itself — a good selection of nihonshu, snacks that make sense, and a clientele that knows what it's doing. A proper local finish to a long day.

Shibuya day begins with a morning in Yoyogi Park, Tokyo's great communal lung. On any given morning you'll find runners on the outer loop, musicians near the fountain plaza, and enough open sky to feel genuinely unhurried. A necessary counterweight to everything that follows.

A two-minute walk from the park, Kenzo Tange's 1964 Olympic gymnasium is one of the great works of 20th-century architecture — the suspended roof cables and sweeping concrete shell feel as bold today as the day they were built. Walk the perimeter slowly.

A short walk into the Yoyogi-Uehara backstreets, the Tokyo Mosque (Camii) is the largest mosque in Japan — its Ottoman-influenced architecture is a dramatic contrast to the residential streets around it. The interior is open to respectful visitors outside prayer times.

Teishoku Kaku serves the definitive Japanese set-meal format — rice, miso, pickles, a main — executed with the kind of quiet confidence that only comes from doing one thing consistently well. Exactly the right fuel before an afternoon of Shibuya galleries.

Tucked into the upscale Shoto residential quarter west of Shibuya Scramble, this museum occupies a stunning 1981 building by Junzo White with a central atrium and moat. The rotating exhibitions lean toward Japanese modern and contemporary art — always worth checking what's on.

Inside Shibuya Hikarie on the 8th floor, the d47 MUSEUM champions Japan's 47 prefectures through design, craft and local production. The curatorial lens is rigorous and the gift shop alone merits the elevator ride. A good late-afternoon stop before dinner.

Hidechan is the kind of Shibuya-area bar that feels like it belongs to no particular era — which is to say it feels entirely Tokyo. Good pours, small plates, and a clientele that's more interested in conversation than posturing. End the night here.

Start your Shinjuku-adjacent final day at this exceptional university museum near Harajuku, whose permanent collection covers Shinto ritual objects, ancient archaeology and the history of Japanese religion from a scholarly but accessible angle. Rarely crowded, always rewarding.

The wave-shaped glass façade of the National Art Center in Roppongi is a destination in itself, but the exhibition programme — drawn from major national and international touring shows — almost always delivers. One of the largest exhibition spaces in Japan, with no permanent collection, so every visit is different.

A pilgrimage for ramen devotees, Eifukucho Taishoken is the house that built the thick, sardine-forward Tokyo ramen style that obsessives travel across the city for. The queue is part of the ritual — join it cheerfully.

Give yourself an hour to drift through Shinjuku's alleys without a plan — the Golden Gai-adjacent lanes, the Kabukicho perimeter, the west-exit electronics sprawl. Tokyo rewards aimless walking more than almost any city, and this neighbourhood rewards it most of all.

Back toward Shibuya for a final cultural hit: Parco Museum on the 4th floor of Parco Shibuya rotates shows that sit at the junction of art, illustration, subculture and fashion. The programming is sharp and the space is beautifully considered.

A Tokyo institution for Indian cooking, BHARAT has been feeding the city's curry faithful for decades. Robust curries, freshly made bread and a warm, no-fuss dining room make it an ideal close to four days of Japanese cuisine — a reminder that Tokyo's food culture is wide as well as deep.

Close out Tokyo at Bar Six — a measured, well-stocked bar where the drinks are made with conviction and the atmosphere asks nothing of you except that you settle in. Order a whisky highball, review four excellent days, and let the city do the rest.