Tokyo is a world of its own and every visitor will find in the city what appeals to their own tastes and interests: these are merely a few areas and aspects of the city that I particularly enjoy .
Azakusa
One of the most historically interesting areas of Tokyo: a combination of the raffish and the religious, traditionally home to an entertainment quarter and close to the Yoshiwara, the Edo red light district, with a reputation as “the most boisterous of the Meiji pleasure centres”. Asakusa is also the home of one of the best known and loved as well as the oldest Tokyo temple, Senso-ji.
Marunouchi
The area in central Tokyo encompassing the Imperial Palace and gardens, the area around Tokyo station and Hibiya Park to the south. In the past the area was occupied by the most powerful military leaders of Japan, the daimyo who were close to the Tokugawa shogunate. Today a centre of business and finance confronts the eastern walls of the Imperial palace. Tokyo station, with its distinctive redbrick eastern front facing the palace grounds, is one of the few buildings left in this part of Tokyo which serve as a reminder of the westernising impulses of the new Meiji governments.
Ueno
One of the cultural centres of Tokyo, including a large park, a zoo, a number of notable museums and art galleries including the National Museum of Western Art and the Tokyo National Museum as well as temples, a boating pond and a famous spot for sakura blossom in the spring. The main campus of Tokyo University is to the east of the park.
Yanaka
Yanaka is one of the few Tokyo neighborhoods in which the old Shitamachi atmosphere can still be felt. The Shitamachi area was low lying and composed largely of the merchant and artisan classes in contrast to the Yamanote, the more affluent and upper class areas of the city which covered the higher ground to the west and was the traditional home of the Tokugawa feudal elite. Yanaka was spared the worst of allied bombing in the war and features examples of traditional housing and markets and countless smaller temples.
Shinjuku
A business and entertainment and shopping centre to the west of Tokyo: home of the world’s busiest railway station, Tokyo’s best known red light district Kabukicho, the city’s skyscraper district with free views over Tokyo from the twin towers of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government office and one of the best green spaces in the city, Shinjuku Gyoen. Truly something for everybody!!
Tokyo Metropolitan Gardens
Nine beautiful gardens ranging from the Edo period to the modern scattered over the greater Tokyo area. Most are in reach of a Yamanote line station.
Kamakura
One of the early capitals of Japan in the medieval period and an excellent day trip from Tokyo. Best known for the Great Buddha but also a centre for traditional temples and walks in the hills and beside the sea.
Yokohama
One of the original treaty ports and together with Nagasaki the most international of Japanese cities, with the largest China town in the country and an area to the south of China town known as Yamate (the Bluff) where foreign residents built their own residential area, complete with western style houses, churches, schools and a large foreign cemetery.
fab!