Tokyo, the biggest metropolitan region in the world, somehow manages to also remain orderly, clean, and safe. It is one of the best places to enjoy tea, a favorite hobby of mine, as well as the breadth of history and culture Japan has to offer. If you can only visit one city in Japan, make it Tokyo (although Kyoto is probably my favorite).

Some general tips:

  • Taxis are crazy expensive (~5x the cost of a taxi in Chicago, ~2x or 3x the cost of a taxi in New York City)

  • Get a Suica or Passmo card for transportation. This works on most local transit nationwide. It also has the benefit of allowing you to largely avoid having to use cash, since you can use it to pay in convenience stores among other places. I carry mine in my Apple Wallet and reload with Apple Pay on the go. (Japan is largely card friendly, but sometimes has difficulty with foreign cards or Apple Pay directly. Suica’s a nice workaround but it can still help to have a bit of cash on hand.

  • There are no daily or monthly transportation cards, its all pay as you go and can get quite expensive too as it varies based on how far you travel.

  • Subways stop running around midnight despite Tokyo having a thriving late night scene. Either party through until trains resume around 5 or 6am, or plan on paying for an expensive taxi!

Now, onto the recommendations…

Tea:

  • Sakurai Japanese Tea Experience

    • Even if you are not a tea drinker, I highly recommend stopping by. This shop is extremely intimate and merges the vibe of a bar and a tea room. Some pretty creative combinations (sencha gin was my favorite) as well as classics (the gyokuro was top notch)

  • Higashiya Ginza

    • This is my personal favorite tea shop in Japan. You can find great tea in a handful of places but the variety and quality of tea sweets offered here make it unique. The butter walnut stuffed date was my favorite back in 2019, but I have no idea if they still serve it.

  • Ippodo Tea-Tokyo Marunouchi

    • Ippodo is an excellent tea shop from Kyoto. They are pretty receptive to chatting with visitors and were kind enough to explain some about tea in English. Their Kyoto store is their flagship, but the Tokyo location is worth a visit if you’ve already checked off the previous tea shops or won’t have time to make it to Kyoto. Ippodo is also where I buy all my Japanese tea that I drink in the US, as they have an easy website with quick shipping.

Other recs:

Yoyogi-Park - very nice park to relax and get away from the concrete jungle

Mokuhankan - woodblock print shop. They used to do woodblock print classes, but it seems they stopped those since COVID-19.

teamLab - teamLab Planets is their permanent exhibition, but teamLab borderless was my personal favorite. Check their website for any special exhibitions they might have going on at the time of your visit.