Rainy Day Tokyo
Museums, arcades, food halls, and other dry pleasures
Tokyo in the rain is not a problem to solve, it is its own mood. The city is built for it: vast underground passages, covered shopping arcades, department store food halls, and some of the best museums in the world. June's rainy season and the odd typhoon day are when I found half the places on this list. Pick two or three near the same station and make an afternoon of it.
63 places
Any time, especially June When
The places
👁 Viewpoint · Asakusa Tokyo Skytree At 634m, the world's tallest broadcast tower. On clear winter days you can see Mt Fuji to the southwest. Th...
👁 Viewpoint · Shiba Tokyo Tower Still the most iconic Tokyo landmark. Outclassed in height by the Skytree but not in charm or centrality. T...
👁 Viewpoint · Roppongi Roppongi Hills Mori Tower The Mori Art Museum on the 52nd floor shares its admission with Tokyo City View, giving you world-class con...
👁 Viewpoint · Bunkyo Bunkyo Civic Center Tokyo's best-kept viewpoint secret: a completely free observation deck on the 25th floor of a civic buildin...
👁 Viewpoint · Ikebukuro Sunshine 60 The old Ikebukuro landmark built on the site of Sugamo Prison. The Sky Circus on the 60th floor has interac...
🍜 Food · Shimokitazawa Shimokitazawa curry row Shimokitazawa has quietly become Tokyo's curry neighbourhood. Dozens of independent curry shops serving Jap...
🍜 Food · Shinjuku Depachika at Isetan The basement food hall of Isetan department store is one of the great food experiences in Tokyo. An undergr...
☕ Cafe · Kuramae Dandelion Chocolate Kuramae San Francisco's bean-to-bar chocolate maker set up in a renovated Kuramae warehouse. Hot chocolate flights,...
🏛 Museum · Ueno Tokyo National Museum Japan's oldest and largest museum, with the world's most extensive collection of Japanese art. The Honkan m...
🏛 Museum · Toyosu teamLab Planets An immersive digital art installation where you walk barefoot through rooms of water, flowers, mirrored lig...
🏛 Museum · Roppongi Mori Art Museum A major contemporary art institution on the 53rd floor of Roppongi Hills, with rotating international exhib...
🏛 Museum · Roppongi 21_21 Design Sight Tadao Ando-designed gallery in Midtown Tokyo, half-buried in a park, dedicated to design in the broadest se...
🏛 Museum · Ryogoku Edo-Tokyo Museum A giant museum dedicated to the city's history from the Edo period through the 20th century. Life-size reco...
🏛 Museum · Mitaka Ghibli Museum Hayao Miyazaki's personal vision of what a museum should be: imaginative, hand-crafted, and anti-corporate....
🛍 Shopping · Shimokitazawa Shimokitazawa vintage The best neighbourhood in Tokyo for vintage and second-hand clothing. Over 20 shops within walking distance...
🛍 Shopping · Akihabara Akihabara Electric Town The world's most intense concentration of electronics, anime, and manga. Eight-storey shops stuffed with ga...
🛍 Shopping · Omotesando Omotesando Hills Tadao Ando's spiralling concrete shopping centre, as architecturally impressive as anything it sells. High-...
🛍 Shopping · Koenji Koenji record shops Koenji is Shimokitazawa's scrappier, more committed sibling. Cheaper rents support a more genuine subcultur...
🛍 Shopping · Ginza Ginza Six The anchor of new Ginza: 241 tenants across 13 floors including the roof garden with a great view. Traditio...
👁 Viewpoint · Shinjuku Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building Twin observation decks at 202m, completely free, in Kenzo Tange's cathedral-like government towers. On clea...
🍜 Food · Tokyo Station Tokyo Ramen Street Eight of Japan's most celebrated ramen shops in one underground corridor beneath Tokyo Station. Rokurinsha'...
🍜 Food · Tsukishima Tsukishima Monja Street Eighty restaurants on one street dedicated to monjayaki, Tokyo's own runny cousin of okonomiyaki, cooked on...
☕ Cafe · Shibuya Chatei Hatou The definitive Tokyo kissaten: dark wood, antique porcelain, and hand-poured siphon coffee made with ceremo...
☕ Cafe · Jimbocho Sabouru A 1955 mountain-hut of a coffee shop in the book district, covered in vines outside and carved wood inside....
🏛 Museum · Aoyama Nezu Museum Kengo Kuma's serene bamboo-lined museum of pre-modern Japanese and East Asian art, hiding one of the city's...
🏛 Museum · Ryogoku Sumida Hokusai Museum A mirrored aluminium museum by Kazuyo Sejima dedicated to Hokusai, who was born and spent nearly all his li...
🛍 Shopping · Asakusa Kappabashi Kitchen Town The street that supplies Tokyo's restaurants: 170 shops selling hand-forged knives, ceramic ware, lanterns,...
🛍 Shopping · Jimbocho Jimbocho Book Town The largest second-hand book district in the world: 130 bookshops on a few blocks, from rare ukiyo-e prints...
🛍 Shopping · Daikanyama Daikanyama T-Site Possibly the world's most beautiful bookstore: three pavilions linked by a magazine street, wrapped in a wh...
🛍 Shopping · Nakano Nakano Broadway A 1966 shopping arcade reborn as the deep end of otaku culture. Four floors of vintage manga, anime cels, r...
👁 Viewpoint · Ebisu Yebisu Garden Place Tower The 38th and 39th floors of this Ebisu tower are a free observation space ringed with restaurants, looking ...
☕ Cafe · Kagurazaka Aux Merveilleux de Fred The Tokyo outpost of the French meringue specialist, perfectly at home on Kagurazaka's Frenchified slope. C...
🏛 Museum · Roppongi The National Art Center Japan's largest exhibition space behind a billowing glass facade by Kisho Kurokawa. No permanent collection...
🏛 Museum · Harajuku Design Festa Gallery An ever-mutating warren of small galleries in the Harajuku backstreets where any artist can rent a wall. Gr...
🛍 Shopping · Akihabara Yodobashi Camera Akihabara Nine floors of every electronic object Japan makes, from camera lenses to rice cookers to gaming chairs. Le...
🛍 Shopping · Shibuya MEGA Don Quijote Shibuya The biggest branch of Japan's most chaotic discount store: seven floors of snacks, cosmetics, costumes, ele...
🗼 Landmark · Marunouchi Tokyo Station The 1914 red brick station that anchors Marunouchi, beautifully restored and far more than a transit hub. B...
🏘 Neighbourhood · Shinjuku Shinjuku A city in itself: the world's busiest station surrounded by skyscrapers, department stores, the neon of Kab...
🍜 Food · Shibuya Ichiran Shibuya The famous solo-booth tonkotsu ramen chain. Touristy, yes, but the booths exist because the ramen deserves ...
🛍 Shopping · Akihabara 2k540 Aki-Oka Artisan A craft and design arcade built into the whitewashed arches under the Yamanote tracks between Akihabara and...
🛍 Shopping · Tokyo Station Tokyo Character Street An underground arcade of 30 official character shops inside Tokyo Station: Ghibli, Pokémon, Sanrio, NHK mas...
🛍 Shopping · Shimokitazawa Shimokitazawa Reload The new low-rise development along the rail line that somehow got it right: indie roasters, a sake bar, des...
🛍 Shopping · Shibuya Tower Records Shibuya Nine floors of physical music in defiance of the entire 21st century. The J-pop and city pop floors are a c...
🍜 Food · Shin-Okubo Shin-Okubo Koreatown One Yamanote stop from Shinjuku, an entire district of Korean barbecue, street snacks, K-pop shops, and cos...
👁 Viewpoint · Marunouchi KITTE Marunouchi The old central post office turned shopping hall, with a free rooftop garden looking straight down on Tokyo...
🏛 Museum · Ryogoku Sumo Museum One-room museum inside Ryogoku Kokugikan stadium tracing sumo history through rotating exhibits of woodbloc...
🏛 Museum · Ryogoku Japanese Sword Museum Museum of the Society for Preservation of Japanese Art Swords, displaying rotating exhibitions of national-...
🏛 Museum · Kyobashi Artizon Museum Reborn Bridgestone Museum of Art, reopened in 2020 in a new Kyobashi tower, holding the Ishibashi collectio...
🏛 Museum · Marunouchi Intermediatheque Free cabinet-of-curiosities museum run by the University of Tokyo inside the old Tokyo Central Post Office,...
🏛 Museum · Komaba Japan Folk Crafts Museum The Mingeikan, founded in 1936 by philosopher Yanagi Soetsu as the home of the mingei folk craft movement, ...
🏛 Museum · Ueno National Museum of Nature and Science Japan's flagship science museum in Ueno Park, with a life-size blue whale outside, dinosaur skeletons, a 36...
🏛 Museum · Ueno National Museum of Western Art Japan's main collection of Western art, built around the Matsukata collection of Impressionists and Rodins,...
🏛 Museum · Harajuku Ota Memorial Museum of Art Intimate ukiyo-e museum hidden behind Laforet in Harajuku, drawing monthly rotating exhibitions from a 14,0...
🏛 Museum · Azabudai teamLab Borderless The relocated digital art museum that reopened in 2024 at Azabudai Hills, a maze of borderless projection w...
👁 Viewpoint · Sangenjaya Carrot Tower Observation Deck Free 26th-floor observation lounge atop the orange-tinted Carrot Tower above Sangenjaya Station, looking ba...
👁 Viewpoint · Asakusa Asakusa Culture Tourist Information Center Kengo Kuma's stacked-house tourist center directly across from Kaminarimon, with a free 8th-floor terrace t...
🛍 Shopping · Oshiage Tokyo Solamachi The 300-plus-shop complex at the base of Tokyo Skytree, mixing character stores and a big food hall with th...
🗼 Landmark · Ginza Kabukiza Theatre The principal home of kabuki since 1889, rebuilt in 2013 by Kengo Kuma with its grand Momoyama-style facade...
🗼 Landmark · Azabudai Azabudai Hills Mori's 2023 mega-development wrapped around the 330-meter Mori JP Tower, Japan's tallest skyscraper, with H...
🗼 Landmark · Yushima Kyu Iwasaki-tei Gardens Opulent 1896 residence of the Mitsubishi-founding Iwasaki family, centred on a Jacobean-style Western mansi...
🍜 Food · Jimbocho Curry Bondy The shop that pioneered Tokyo's European-style curry in 1973, hidden on the second floor above a secondhand...
☕ Cafe · Ginza Cafe de l'Ambre Legendary Ginza kissaten pouring coffee and nothing else since 1948, with 30-plus single origins including ...
☕ Cafe · Shibuya Meikyoku Kissa Lion A classical-music listening cafe on Dogenzaka founded in 1926 and rebuilt to the same design in 1950, with ...
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