Tokyo Hidden Gems

Tokyo rewards knowing which of its layers you are standing on. The eastern wards — Asakusa, Yanaka, Kiyosumi — sit on the low alluvial ground of old Edo, laid out on canals and still built at street level, with temple markets and workshops. The western wards sit on the Musashino terrace, higher and drier, and were rebuilt as a twentieth-century city around rail terminals, which is why Shinjuku and Shibuya work vertically and confusingly. The rivers between them are the seam. Beyond the sprawl the prefecture keeps going: Okutama, two hours west, is forested mountain with a reservoir and cedar plantations, and Mt. Takao carries more climbers per year than any mountain on earth largely because it is an hour from Shinjuku. Then there are the Izu and Ogasawara islands, up to a thousand kilometres out in the Pacific, administratively Tokyo, reached by overnight ferry, and subtropical enough to have coral and whale watching on the same day.