The classics, done right
The unmissable sights, distilled to what matters — even on your first visit.
東京
Backstreet Journey
Another Tokyo, just past the backstreets.
From must-see landmarks to alleys guidebooks walk right past — Backstreet Journey helps you explore Tokyo one station at a time.
Local secrets make the best travel stories
Every travel site recommends the same spots. We care about what residents tell only their friends: standing bars that open at 10 a.m., an upside-down Skytree reflected in a canal, rice crackers grilled over charcoal.
Only genuine hidden gems
Not in guidebooks, few tourists — that is our bar for calling something a local secret.
In six languages
English, Japanese, Korean, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, and Thai.
Choose a station
Area
Line
- Akihabara秋葉原There is no Akiba shrine in Akihabara. The one the district is named for was moved three kilometres away in 1888, to make room for the railway.JR Yamanote LineJR Sobu LineHibiya Line
- Asakusa浅草A temple founded in 628 around a figure two fishermen pulled from the river. The buildings you see around it are all reconstructions.Ginza LineToei Asakusa LineTobu Skytree Line
- Asakusabashi浅草橋Neither the gate nor the bridge was ever in Asakusa; both stood on the road that led there. The doll wholesalers have been on this ground for three centuries.JR Sobu LineToei Asakusa Line
- Ginza銀座The silver mint that gave the district its name moved away in 1801. The willows came later, and only because they were the one tree the high water would not kill.Ginza LineMarunouchi LineHibiya Line
- Hamamatsucho浜松町Twenty-four minutes to Haneda, twenty-four hours to the islands — the station that faces the seaJR Yamanote LineJR Keihin-Tohoku LineTokyo Monorail
- Harajuku原宿For nearly twenty years, what is now Yoyogi Park was an American housing estate of 827 houses that you could not enter.JR Yamanote LineChiyoda Line
- Kamata蒲田A shitamachi district that once made films, still working as a gateway to HanedaJR Keihin-Tohoku LineTokyu Ikegami LineTokyu Tamagawa Line
- Kameido亀戸Kamejima was an island of silt at the river mouth, said to be shaped like a turtle. The channels filled in long ago and the name is the only part left.JR Sobu LineTobu Kameido Line
- Kinshicho錦糸町The canal the district is named after has been filled in — the one where a voice was said to come out of the water and tell you to leave the fish behind.JR Sobu LineHanzomon Line
- Kita Senju北千住The first post town on the Oshu highway, north of the Arakawa. Basho set out for the north from here, and the drinking alleys off the west exit are still narrow.JR Joban LineHibiya LineChiyoda Line
- Meguro目黒The road drops the moment you leave the station. Everything named Meguro lies at the bottom of the hillJR Yamanote LineTokyu Meguro LineToei Mita Line
- Nakano中野A building that grew out of a two-tsubo bookshop, and the ground that once held a hundred thousand dogs. Both are north of Nakano StationJR Chuo LineTozai Line
- Ningyocho人形町Edo kabuki began here. The theatres were moved to Asakusa by the Tempo reforms, and what stayed behind was the name of the souvenir — dollsHibiya LineToei Asakusa LineHanzomon LineToei Shinjuku Line
- Nishiogikubo西荻窪A hollow where reeds grew, until the station opened in 1922. The antique shops are not on the main street — they are in the lanes behind it.JR Chuo Line
- Oshiage押上Until 2012 the station at the foot of the tower was called Narihira-bashi, after a poet who stopped at this river and asked a bird about the city he had left.Hanzomon LineToei Asakusa LineKeisei Oshiage Line
- Roppongi六本木Six trees, or six households whose names carried the character for tree. Neither account has been proved, and no tree is left to settle it.Hibiya LineToei Oedo Line
- Ryogoku両国Two provinces, joined by a bridge after the fire of 1657. At the centre of the district is a park that exists because of what happened on the ground it covers.JR Sobu LineToei Oedo Line
- Shibuya渋谷A brook from a school song of 1912 still runs under these streets, culverted. The crowd on the crossing is walking on top of it.JR Yamanote LineGinza LineHanzomon Line
- Shimbashi新橋Where Japan's first railway departed. The bars now fill the arches and the alleys, and SL Plaza is where television goes to interview drunk office workersJR Yamanote LineGinza LineToei Asakusa Line
- Shimokitazawa下北沢The lower reach of a stream called Kitazawa. The stream is culverted now and survives as a green walkway; Kami-Kitazawa is simply the top of the same water.Odakyu LineKeio Inokashira Line
- Shinagawa品川Named Shinagawa, addressed in Minato Ward — the old post town is a kilometre from hereJR Yamanote LineJR Tokaido LineKeikyu Main Line
- Shinjuku新宿A post town that townsmen paid the shogunate for the right to build, in 1697, because the first stage out of Nihonbashi had been set too far away.JR Yamanote LineJR Chuo LineMarunouchi LineToei Shinjuku Line
- Sugamo巣鴨The Jizo at the centre of this district is never shown. By the temple's own account the image was taken from a seal less than three centimetres across.JR Yamanote LineToei Mita Line
- Tateishi立石The town is named after a rock in a children's playground. It is tuff quarried across the bay in Chiba, and only a little of it now shows above the soil.Keisei Oshiage Line
- Togoshi Ginza戸越銀座After the earthquake the shopping street was paved with the bricks Ginza tore up, and took the name along with them.Tokyu Ikegami LineToei Asakusa Line
- Tokyo Station東京The east side of the station is called Yaesu, after a Dutch sailor. The name belonged to the west side until 1929, disappeared, and came back in 1954 on the other side of the tracks.JR Yamanote LineJR Chuo LineJR Keihin-Tohoku LineMarunouchi Line
- Ueno上野For most of the twentieth century this was where the north of Japan arrived in Tokyo — the overnight trains terminated here and everyone walked straight out.JR Yamanote LineGinza LineHibiya Line
- Yanesen谷根千Not on any map. The name is a contraction of three neighbourhoods, coined in 1984 by a quarterly magazine the residents started themselves.Chiyoda LineJR Yamanote Line
Tokyo Backstreets
Every station's Local Secrets, in one list
About this site
Who writes this, and what happened when 88 of its 107 photographs turned out to show the wrong place.