Tokyo in 5 Days: A Five Day Itinerary for Tokyo

A 5 Day Tokyo Itinerary: What to do in Tokyo

Welcome to the ultimate 5 day Tokyo itinerary or how to see Tokyo in five days. From sumo to sushi, karaoke to kitsch, volcanic baths to spaceship-like toilet flush controls, Japan provides an intense cultural experience like nowhere else on earth. Many first time visitors say that Japan’s like nowhere else they’ve been, and just a day spent in Tokyo condenses that idea to its core. I’ve travelled to Tokyo many times, often thinking how this city serves as a capsule of life in modern Japan:  energetic, frenetic and forging into the future on the one hand, seamlessly preserving traditions from the past on the other.

How to use this 5 day Tokyo itinerary

Sections are deliberately arranged so that you can pick and mix. You'll find a lot to do in Tokyo but the Japan Rail Network is so good that it's easy to leave the city behind and explore more of the country. Find some useful day trips from Tokyo here and more on Japan's highlights here. Finally, enjoy the Japan trip planner here.

Five Days in Tokyo

Day 1 - Imperial Palace, Sensoji Temple & Asakusa Shrine

Today has an easy-going pace to allow you to recover from your journey and adjust. Find a section on nightlife at the end but you can easily move this to another day.

Sensoji Temple and the Asakusa Shrine

Tendrils of smoke curl and float past scarlet pillars. Fingers fold white paper into prayers. Heads bow, hands wash in water, and the soft, sonorous chime of a gong, flecked with gold, reverberates through the crowd.

This is the Asakusa Shrine, or Sanja-Sama (the shrine of the three gods,) in the heart of pulsing Tokyo. 

The Tokyo Imperial Palace

Home to the Emperor, the Imperial Residence in Chiyoda ward is surrounded by parkland and waterways that make for a welcome break from the frenetic pace of other parts of the city. You can't actually go inside but you can admire the buildings and gardens.

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Tokyo at Night: Adjust According to Jet Lag

The Tokyo Tower

Emblazoned in red and white, it’s the world’s tallest self-supporting steel tower, grabbing at least 13 more metres above sea level than its Parisian counterpart.

Its dizzying observation deck offers views of the concrete skyscrapers, green parks and curving gables of traditional Japanese architecture that make up the cityscape below.

The Tokyo Tower held the record as the capital’s tallest structure from 1958 until 2012 when the Tokyo Skytree pierced the air.

The Tokyo Skytree

Standing at a vertiginous 634 metres tall with not one but two glass-fronted observation decks and an aquarium down by the ground, even the height of the Skytree merges futuristic construction with traditional ideas: 634 can be read as “Musashi,” an historic name for the Tokyo region and reminder that in Japan, few details occur by accident.

Rainbow Bridge

Don't tell Tokyo I said this, but compared to many other cities, it doesn't have a night skyline that dazzles from the water. The Rainbow Bridge is worth a look from a night cruise but try to pick one with something else going on: a traditional tea ceremony or (gulp!) karaoke with salarymen if you're brave enough.

 Day 2 - Shibuya, Harajuku and the Meiji-Jingu Shrine

Shibuya

Embrace your inner Scarlett Johansson from the Oscar-winning film Lost in Translation.

Start at the Hachiko crossing outside Shibuya station to watch the crowds gather and disperse, gather and disperse in a pulsing demonstration of modern city life. For a more ironic view, see tourists mesmerised by the same human pattern on the upper floors of the nearby Starbucks. Who knew how interesting meticulous urban planning could be?

The plush and polished Park Hyatt Tokyo served as the location for Bill Murray’s bar, pool and hotel scenes and offers a glitzy atmosphere for evening cocktails or all-American breakfast if the appeal of morning rice is wearing thin.

Harajuku and Meiji Jingu

There's a tiny street in Harajuku that contains all the world's Hello Kitty pink fluff and biker leather all rolled in to one.

Across the road from there, trees open overhead into an expansive parkland that leads to the Meiji Jingu shrine. The park even has a fantastic name: Yoyogi Park.

Day 3 - Yanaka, Calligraphy and a Taste of the Old Japan

But among all this hedonism, there are plenty of quieter spots in the city where you can find a taste of the old Japan.

Yanaka & Ueno Park

Take Yanaka, a district within walking distance of Ueno Park, where stone torii stand outside dark wooden temples and local artists mix pigments from crystals into paint by hand. This is the Tokyo that existed before the carpet-bombing during World War Two set the city on fire.

The Japanese call this nostalgic ambiance shitamachi, the rustic simplicity evoked by these traditional streets where cherry trees draw spectators with their blossom each spring.

Perhaps not surprisingly, artistic communities flourish in and around Yanaka.

Artist Allan West, for example, paints here, taking hour upon painstaking hour to lay ochre, blue and charcoal onto wall screens gilded with birds and natural beauty.

Harmonica Yukocho & Iconic Tokyo Tastes

Yanaka is also a hot spot for the sweet and gluey treat of manju. Imagine an enlarged golf ball sliced in half, the outer shell soft and gelatinous, the inside a savoury sort of fudge. The base ingredients include rice flour and red bean paste, but my favourite involves the pairing of thick black sugar with bitter green tea.

Tea itself comes with a disciplined ritual, or at least it can if you follow the formal chaji method. Served in a ceremony that can take up to four hours, this revered custom for exalted guests lies far from whipping up a builder’s brew. Instead, expect immaculate silk-gowned attendants tiptoeing between opaque bamboo screens on soft tatami mats – and be sure to take your time.

At the opposite end of the scale, nudge your way to the bar join the salarymen, Tokyo’s corporate white-collar workers, for yakitori at the end of a busy office day.

Yakitori spears food, typically chicken, with kushi (bamboo or steel skewers) before cooking the chosen morsels over an open charcoal fire. Seasoning is salty-sweet, often combining soy sauce, sake, sugar and mirin, a light rice wine, into a simple but surprisingly tasty marinade.

Dining this way becomes fast and furious, often washed down with wooden cups of sake, glasses of beer or shots of the local spirit shochu. Tokyo-ites tend not to sip and stay slow.

One of the most atmospheric spots for this is the labyrinthine pedestrian area of Harmonica Yukocho, whose watering holes and markets line the narrow streets beneath bobbing red lanterns that ooze old world charm.

Day 4 - Ginza, Akihabara, Onsen

Ginza: Boutiques and Art

Away from the fish markets, glitzier shopping opportunities can be found in the designer boutiques and art galleries around Ginza.

Akihabara: Electronics and Maid Cafes 

Akihabara is the place to go for high tech electronics and vintage Mario Bros computer games. It’s here, too, that you’ll find the diehard fans (otaku) of anime and manga. These Lolita-like comics and plastic figures inspired the Maid Cafes, where costumed French maids giggle with customers over coffee and make heart shapes with their hands – for a fee.

And if you’re feeling homesick for your beloved pet, make your way to one of Tokyo’s curious cat cafes. For the price of a coffee, you’ll get a pair of slippers, access to a sofa and the chance to pet and play with any one of a number of feline friends.

Find an Onsen

If crazy cats aren’t your thing, try bathing naked with strangers at a Japanese onsen. In the countryside, these thermal baths typically occur on the picturesque sites of natural volcanic springs.

In Tokyo, expect a few more sliding bamboo screens in order to provide some urban privacy.

Nudity is strictly enforced in the hot water itself, although sexes are segregated, but the steam and extreme heat make for a surprisingly relaxed experience.

Onsen complex Niwa no Yu allows swimsuits in some sections, in case you’re worried you’ll get cold feet when it’s time to disrobe.

Day 5: Hit the Museums or Escape the City Altogether

Tokyo Museum District

Travel to Ueno to find a cluster of world class museums: the Tokyo National Museum, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, National Museum of Nature and Science, National Museum of Western Art, and the Ueno Royal Museum. Ueno Park is right next door and if you happen to be there during the cherry blossom season, make extra time to linger here.

Day Trips from Tokyo

Read the section on day trips from Tokyo to pick the right one for you. You can climb Mt Fuji, or look up at her slopes. Catch monkeys in the hot springs or sail across a lake. Stare up at the Big Buddha or city hop to Kyoto or Osaka. Or, visit the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Nikko within easy reach of Tokyo. 

Related: see the Day Trips from Tokyo

Tokyo: Getting There and Getting Around

Navigating the Tokyo metro

Getting to Tokyo from the airports

Look into the Japan Rail pass, especially if you're travelling beyond Tokyo.

Putting Tokyo into Context

But as much as I love the healing powers of the onsen, for me, Tokyo offers other ways to relax between the fragmented horizon of its concrete towers.

Take the view of snow-capped Mount Fuji, for example, a reminder of the country that extends beyond the city, of the prominent landscape, the rich culture and the intriguing history that defines Japan.

And in a smaller way, too, those white paper prayers and those curling tendrils of smoke in Asakusa have the same effect.

It’s as though the smallest of traditional details bring the whole city of Tokyo alive.

Disclosure - Sometimes I've travelled to Tokyo under my own steam and sometimes I've stayed with friends. Sometimes I've been hosted by various hotels, tourist boards and companies. However, as ever, as always, I always keep the right to write what I like.