Tokyo & around, an easy few days

I'd give the first day to the low city — shitamachi, the old eastern wards where Tokyo feels less like a metropolis and more like a string of neighbourhoods. The heart of it is Senso-ji, the city's oldest temple, reached through the great Kaminarimon gate and a long arcade of tiny shops that has been selling snacks and charms to pilgrims for centuries. I'd go early, before the arcade fills, when the incense smoke is still settling and the shopkeepers are rolling up their shutters. From there the day can drift toward Akihabara — Tokyo's electric town, loud and bright and devoted to the things people love without apology. One gentle thing to carry through the morning: at the temple, people are praying, not posing — a small bow at the gate and a quiet phone, and you fold right in.

Day two I'd flip to the western, greener heart of the city and then let it build into Tokyo's bright, modern energy. Meiji Jingu is a forest shrine in the middle of the city — you pass under a great wooden gate and the traffic noise simply stops, replaced by gravel underfoot and tall trees. Step out the other side and you're in Harajuku, where the city's youngest, most playful self spills down Takeshita Street. From there the day flows downhill along the leafy boulevard of Omotesando into Shibuya — the scramble crossing where the whole city seems to move at once, the image a lot of people picture when they picture Tokyo. The forest shrine asks for stillness, the crossing asks for a different kind of wonder — and Tokyo holds both without blinking. If digital art pulls at you more than crowds, you could trade the afternoon for one of the teamLab worlds instead.

Kamakura is the easy day out to the south — a small seaside town that was once the seat of Japan's first samurai government, now full of temples tucked into green hills with the Pacific at the bottom of the streets. The heart of it for most people is the Great Buddha at Kotoku-in: a bronze figure that has sat out in the open air for centuries, ever since the hall built over it was washed away — there's something quietly moving about a giant Buddha that simply weathers the seasons under the sky. I'd ride the little Enoden tram between the sights; it rattles along the coast almost close enough to touch the houses, and the sea opens up between stops. A slow, salt-air counterpoint to the city.

Nikko is the day trip north, up into the mountains, and it's a complete change of register from the city — cedar forests, waterfalls, and one of the most ornately decorated shrine complexes in Japan. Nikko Toshogu is the mausoleum of the shogun who unified the country, and unlike the restraint you'll have felt at other shrines it is gloriously, almost defiantly carved and gilded — gold leaf, painted beasts, and the famous three monkeys among them. There's an old line that Nikko is where the Japanese word for 'magnificent' was earned, and standing under the Yomeimon gate you feel where it comes from. Beyond the shrines, the cryptomeria avenues and the mountain air make the long ride out worth it.