Bunkyo

Bunkyo is full of schools — the University of Tokyo among them — and temples, and it goes quiet at night. No entertainment district developed here; instead old shops survive deep inside residential blocks. Nezu and Yanaka came through the war relatively lightly, so timber buildings and narrow lanes remain, with long-established businesses tucked among them.

One caution applies to this ward. Its old shops advertise almost nothing, and they close just as quietly. Some keep short hours, or simply stop for the day when an ingredient runs out, so you can arrive at lunchtime and find it over. Checking before you go matters more here than elsewhere.

The ward also holds shops among the oldest in Tokyo. One trading name, running since the Edo period, became shorthand for "the thing that never changes" and turned up in an Edo-era proverb. That such a place stands on a residential corner with no tourist signboard is Bunkyo in a nutshell.