Walking Tours in Tokyo with StreetLore

Popular spots covered in Tokyo

6 hand-picked stops with researched narration. Every listing below ships with a curated lore beat — the same content the app speaks while you walk past.

1. 

   01

   Sensō-ji

   historic

   Tokyo's oldest temple, founded in 645. The origin story: two fisherman brothers pulled a small gold statue of the bodhisattva Kannon out of the Sumida River in 628 and built the first temple to house it; that statue is still there, locked away and never publicly shown. The giant red lantern you walk under at the outer gate, Kaminarimon, weighs 700 kilos and is replaced every ten years — the current one was paid for by Panasonic. Between the two gates is Nakamise-dōri, a 250-metre arcade of shops selling the same kinds of sweets and trinkets they've sold for 400 years. The five-storied pagoda to the left of the main hall is hollow — only the lowest floor is accessible. The temple was bombed to the ground in March 1945 and rebuilt in the 1950s.

2. 

   02

   Meiji Jingū

   historic

   A Shinto shrine dedicated to Emperor Meiji (died 1912) and Empress Shōken, completed in 1920. What makes it remarkable is the forest: 70 hectares of 100,000 trees, all donated by Japanese citizens during construction and planted in a pattern that's designed to evolve over 150 years into a self-sustaining climax forest. It's the quietest place in the middle of Tokyo — you cross one torii gate and the city disappears. The original shrine was firebombed in 1945; the current buildings are from 1958. If you see wedding parties, they're real Shinto weddings — the traditional white hoods and kimonos — and the shrine is one of the most popular places in Tokyo to hold them.

3. 

   03

   Shibuya Scramble Crossing

   landmark

   Possibly the busiest pedestrian crossing in the world — estimates of 2,500 people crossing every time the lights change, and the lights cycle about every two minutes. All cars stop, pedestrian lights turn green in every direction simultaneously, and a small sea of people moves. The Starbucks on the second floor of the Tsutaya on the north side is the classic place to watch it from. The statue nearby of the dog Hachikō — an Akita who waited at Shibuya Station for nine years after his owner died — is the most popular meeting spot in Tokyo. There's a line of white tiles in the pavement showing the exact spot the dog used to sit.

4. 

   04

   Imperial Palace East Gardens

   historic

   The East Gardens sit on what used to be the main enclosure of Edo Castle, the shogun's fortress and the largest castle in the world when it was completed in the early 1600s. The stone walls and moats are original Edo-period work; the castle's wooden upper structures burned down in 1657 and were never rebuilt. The main palace (where the emperor actually lives) is to the west and closed to the public except twice a year, but the East Gardens are open and free. What you see now is stonework, cherry trees, and a fragment of the old foundation, the Tenshudai, that the keep once stood on. Joggers loop the outer moat — a 5km circuit that's one of Tokyo's most popular runs. Closed Mondays and Fridays.

5. 05

   Tsukiji Outer Market

   landmark

   The old inner wholesale fish market moved out to Toyosu in 2018, but the outer market — four blocks of about 400 small shops and stalls selling sushi, grilled seafood, knives, tea, pickles, and tamagoyaki — stayed where it is and kept the name. This is where home cooks and small restaurateurs have shopped since the 1920s. The atmosphere is the point: narrow alleys, people calling across at each other, tuna cut in storefronts. Go before 9 a.m. if you want the good stalls still stocked; most places close by early afternoon. Sushi Dai used to have a four-hour queue in the inner market; the best sushi now is in small storefronts on Namiyoke-dori. Tsukihoden for sea urchin, Maruyū for grilled scallops.

6. 

   06

   Ueno Park

   landmark

   A 133-hectare park in the north-east of central Tokyo, opened to the public in 1873 — one of Japan's first Western-style public parks, carved out of the grounds of Kan'ei-ji temple after the Shogitai, a band of loyalists to the last shogun, made their final stand on the hill and lost. The complex contains the Tokyo National Museum (Japan's largest), the National Museum of Western Art (Le Corbusier, now UNESCO listed), the Museum of Nature and Science, the Ueno Zoo (Japan's first, opened 1882), Shinobazu Pond covered in lotus, and the bronze Saigō Takamori statue of the samurai hero with his dog. One of Tokyo's most heavily attended cherry-blossom sites — deservedly, but impossible to walk through in peak sakura week.

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