Tokyo: The Perfect Romantic Getaway

Both Narita (1 hour by Narita Express train) and Haneda (25 minutes by monorail) connect easily to central Tokyo. Check into your hotel and walk without agenda through whichever neighborhood you're in — Tokyo rewards aimless walking more than almost any city. Get a Suica card (rechargeable transit card, works on all trains, metro, and buses, and also as a contactless payment card at convenience stores) from any major station. The 7-Eleven and Lawson convenience stores in Japan are genuinely extraordinary food destinations — onigiri, karaage, and fresh sushi at midnight from a fluorescent-lit convenience store is a specifically Japanese pleasure that should be experienced on the first night. If still awake and energetic, Shibuya's scramble crossing at night — the world's busiest pedestrian crossing, 500+ people crossing from every direction simultaneously — is the single most visually intense image of modern Tokyo.

• ✦ Narita Express or Haneda monorail to central Tokyo
• ✦ Suica card from any major station — essential for the metro
• ✦ 7-Eleven convenience store midnight food experience
• ✦ Shibuya scramble crossing at night

Asakusa is the heart of shitamachi — the low city of Tokyo, the old working-class eastern districts where the Edo-era streetscape survives better than anywhere else. Senso-ji, the great Buddhist temple complex founded in the 7th century, has been rebuilt repeatedly and its current buildings are spectacular: the Thunder Gate (Kaminarimon) with its 700kg lantern, the Nakamise shopping street of souvenir and traditional food stalls, and the main hall where incense smoke billows and fortunes are drawn. Walk north through Asakusa to the Sumida River for a view of the Tokyo Skytree — at 634 meters the second tallest structure in the world. The Nakamise's traditional food stalls sell ningyo-yaki (shaped sponge cakes), kaminari-okoshi (rice puffs with peanut), and yakisoba prepared in enormous iron griddles. Afternoon: the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (MOT) in Kiba, or the Edo-Tokyo Museum in Ryogoku for the definitive history of how Tokyo became what it is.

• ✦ Senso-ji Kaminarimon Thunder Gate and Nakamise street
• ✦ Incense smoke ritual and fortune papers at the main hall
• ✦ Sumida River view of Tokyo Skytree
• ✦ Edo-Tokyo Museum in Ryogoku

Shinjuku is Tokyo's most overwhelming neighborhood — the world's busiest railway station (3.5 million passengers daily), the neon forests of Kabukicho (the entertainment district), the izakaya alley of Memory Lane (Omoide Yokocho, 40 years of yakitori smoke and lantern light in a 2-meter-wide lane), and the extraordinary viewing platform of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building (free, 202 meters, with Mount Fuji visible on clear days). Shibuya, a short train ride south, is Tokyo's youth and fashion center: the Scramble Crossing in daylight (even more extraordinary for the sheer density of beautiful people in fashionable clothes), Harajuku's Takeshita Street for the extreme end of Japanese youth fashion, and the Meiji Jingu Shrine — the great Shinto shrine to Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken, set in 70 hectares of forested park in the middle of the city that constitutes the most extraordinary urban forest in the world.

• ✦ Shinjuku Omoide Yokocho — yakitori and lanterns in a 2-meter alley
• ✦ Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building free observation deck
• ✦ Shibuya Scramble Crossing in daylight
• ✦ Meiji Jingu Shrine in 70 hectares of urban forest

The Tsukiji Outer Market is the world's great seafood market experience — the inner wholesale market has moved to Toyosu, but the outer market remains a sensory onslaught of fishmongers, sushi bars, kitchen equipment shops, and the specific smell of the ocean mixed with grilling fish and miso. Arrive at 7am for the freshest sushi breakfast at Sushi Dai or Daiwa Sushi (expect a queue, but it moves quickly and the food justifies everything). Walk north to Ginza — Tokyo's luxury shopping district, architecturally extraordinary with buildings by Pritzker Prize laureates at every intersection. The René Magritte — actually the Hermès Ginza building by Renzo Piano (a glass curtain wall building lit from within) is particularly beautiful at night. TeamLab Borderless in Odaiba or teamLab Planets in Toyosu are immersive digital art experiences unlike anything in the world — borderless means the entire 10,000sqm space is one continuous, room-filling digital artwork that changes constantly. Book well in advance.

• ✦ Tsukiji Outer Market — 7am sushi breakfast at Sushi Dai
• ✦ Ginza luxury shopping and architectural brilliance
• ✦ TeamLab Borderless or Planets — immersive digital art (book ahead)
• ✦ Odaiba waterfront view of the Rainbow Bridge and Mount Fuji

Yanaka is one of Tokyo's last surviving pre-war shitamachi neighborhoods — a network of small streets and temples that somehow escaped the 1923 earthquake, the 1945 firebombing, and the postwar development frenzy that consumed most of old Tokyo. The Yanaka Ginza shopping street — a short shotengai (covered neighborhood market) of traditional food shops, pottery, cats, and small cafés — is the most charming street in Tokyo. The Yanaka Cemetery contains the graves of several Tokugawa shoguns and is exceptionally beautiful with spring cherry blossoms. Shimokitazawa, 30 minutes west, is Tokyo's bohemian neighborhood — second-hand clothing shops, indie music venues, small bars, and cafe culture completely different from the corporate Shibuya and Shinjuku experience. The Sunday vintage market at Shimokitazawa draws the most creative section of Tokyo's under-30 population and their extraordinarily well-assembled outfits.

• ✦ Yanaka Ginza shotengai — old Tokyo in a traditional shopping street
• ✦ Yanaka Cemetery with Tokugawa shogun graves
• ✦ Shimokitazawa vintage market and indie music scene
• ✦ Tokyo's best curry at Shimokitazawa's local restaurants

Nikko, 140km north of Tokyo (2 hours by Tobu Nikko Line limited express), is one of Japan's most extraordinarily ornate shrine complexes — the Tosho-gu Shrine, built in 1617 to enshrine the first Tokugawa shogun Ieyasu, is a maximalist baroque creation of gold leaf, lacquerwork, carved polychrome wood, and painted architectural panels covering an entire hillside in ancient cedar forest. The famous Sleeping Cat carving and the three Wise Monkeys (see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil) are here. The Rinnoji Temple at the complex entrance has three gilded Buddhist statues over 8 meters tall. The Kegon Falls — 97 meters tall, fed by the overflow of Lake Chūzenji high above the town — are Japan's most celebrated waterfall. The approach to all of this is through the most magnificent avenue of 200-year-old cryptomeria cypress trees, 36km long, planted by a lord who couldn't afford to donate a lantern.

• ✦ Nikko Tosho-gu Shrine — Tokugawa shogun's baroque gold-leaf mausoleum
• ✦ The three Wise Monkeys — the original carvings
• ✦ Kegon Falls — 97 meters of snowmelt waterfall
• ✦ Cryptomeria cypress avenue — 36km of 200-year-old trees

Tokyo's two major international airports (Narita and Haneda) are both well-connected; Haneda is closer and increasingly serves more international routes. A final Tokyo morning belongs to the Depachika — the basement food halls of the major department stores (Isetan in Shinjuku, Mitsukoshi in Ginza, Takashimaya in Nihonbashi) that are the most extraordinary food retail environments in the world: impeccably wrapped sweets, bento boxes prepared to museum-display standards, and the specific Japanese reverence for food as craft visible in every transaction. Buy wagashi (traditional Japanese confections — the most beautiful food objects made anywhere on earth), matcha Kit-Kats, onigiri from 7-Eleven, and a final bowl of ramen at whichever shop had the longest queue during your week. Tokyo is the city that teaches you what food excellence actually means.

• ✦ Depachika department store basement food hall
• ✦ Wagashi Japanese confections — the world's most beautiful food objects
• ✦ Final ramen at whichever shop had the longest queue
• ✦ Narita Express or Haneda monorail for departure