With more than 200 shops, boutiques, restaurants, cafés and bars, as well as the sleek Grand Hyatt Hotel, the stunningly contemporary Mori Art Museum (page 106) located on the top floors of the complex’s glistening main tower, plus, in separate buildings, the head-quarters of Asahi TV and some of the city’s most exclusive apartments, it was rightly billed as a “city within a city,” breaking new ground for Tokyo with its scale and luxury. It set the stage for other sleek urban developments that would soon follow, one of which would be built very near by.
Not to be outdone by Mori, Mitsui Fudosan, Japan’s largest real estate developer, built a city within a city of its own–Tokyo Midtown–just down the road. Opened in 2007, Mitsui’s complex is made up of five buildings and a central tower that, at 248 meters (814 feet), is the tallest building in Tokyo Prefecture. Its five-story Galleria is home to 73,000 square meters (790,000 square feet) of stores and restaurants, while the surrounding grounds include a spacious park and garden.
Where Roppongi Hills boasts the Grand Hyatt, Midtown has the five-star Ritz Carlton (page 79) on the upper floors of its main tower. Midtown doesn’t do badly for art either, with the Design Sight 21_21 (2121designsight.jp) gallery and workshop, created by renowned architect Tadao Ando and fashion designer Issey Miyake to showcase modern Japanese design, as well as the Suntory Museum of Art (suntory.com/sma) with its fine collection of traditional Japanese art. The result is two cities within a city, standing face to face and creating the quintessential Tokyo experience.
Opening Times Varies by store, attraction and restaurant, but most places within Roppongi Hills and Midtown will be open by 11 a.m. Check the websites below. Getting There Roppongi Station is on the Hibiya and Oedo subway lines. Contact Roppongi Hills: roppongihills.com. Tokyo Midtown: tokyo-midtown.com Admission Fee Free
3 Tokyo’s Tsukiji Market
Energetic tuna auctions and the city’s best sushi breakfast
It’s 5.30 a.m. and Tokyo’s Tsukiji Market bursts into life with the ringing of a bell that heralds the start of the daily tuna auctions. What follows is a blur of hand signals set to a cacophony of hollers, a rapid to and fro between auctioneer and wholesalers that’s incomprehensible to the outsider. It’s like watching a classical performance, but with choreographed kabuki moves and with kimono replaced by rubber boots and overalls. And instead of a theater, you are in a cavernous warehouse filled with line upon line of whole frozen tunas.
Away from the auction, the sprawling main market is a hive of activity all through the morning, with more than 60,000 wholesalers, buyers and shippers busy supplying the city’s restaurants and shops with what amounts to more than 700,000 tons of seafood a year. To put that into context, each day in excess of ¥1.5 billion ($19 million) worth of produce is traded here, and not only seafood. Tsukiji, or Tokyo Metropolitan Central Wholesale Market to give its proper name, also trades in vegetables, meat and even cooking utensils, while the outer public market teems with small sushi bars.
What the original fishermen of Tsukiji would make of it now is anyone’s guess. The area was nothing more than mud flats when the first Edo-era shogun, Tokugawa Ieyasu, brought the fisherman in from Osaka at the start of the 17th century with the order to supply his new capital with seafood. Not until after the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 and the subsequent consolidation of small private markets into large wholesale venues did Tsukiji takes its current form.
Tsukiji reigns as the world’s largest fish market, but that looks set to end. The Metropolitan Government of Tokyo is planning to move the fish auction market to a new (and controversial) site in eastern Tokyo in order to cash in on the land value of Tsukiji’s current location, which is estimated to be 350 billion yen or approximately 5 million yen per tsubo (3.3 square meters). However, the outer market precincts with their food stalls and sushi restaurants will remain.
Opening Times The fish auction market is open from 5 a.m to 3 p.m. The tuna auctions are limited to 120 people on a first-come basis and begin at 5.25 a.m. Closed Sunday and 2nd/4th Weds. The outer market and sushi restaurants are open all day. Getting There Tsukiji Shijo Station is on the Oedo subway line and Tsukiji Station is on the Hibiya subway line. The market is a short walk from either. Admission Fee Free. Important While the outer market and sushi restaurants will remain at the current location, the fish auction market may move to a new site in Toyosu sometime in the future but the date has not yet been decided upon.
4 The Great Buddha at Kamakura
Japan’s most serene and storied religious figure
With a smile as enigmatic as the Mona Lisa’s and a face that has appeared on almost as many postcards as Mount Fuji, the giant statue of Buddha at Hase, near Kamakura (page 36), is one of Japan’s most recognizable sights. It is also one of the most worthwhile places to visit within day-trip distance of Tokyo.
Plenty of history has unfolded during the 750 years the Daibutsu has held court on its stone pedestal at Kotoku-in Temple, where he serenely sits cross-legged, eyes gently closed in meditation. The Muromachi, Momoyama, Edo, Meiji, Taisho and Showa eras have come and gone, as too have numerous wars and natural disasters. In fact, it was because of one of the latter that the Daibutsu is now exposed to the elements, for the wooden building that once housed him was washed away by a tsunami in 1495, a frightening thought given that Kotoku-in is almost a kilometer (half a mile) inland. Yet other than turning his bronze finish into its distinctive streaky mix of gray, green and soft metallic blue, the years exposed to the sun, wind and rain have been kind to the Daibutsu. The only real damage he has suffered is losing the gold leaf coating that some believe he may have had when he was completed in 1252.
Although tourists primarily come (at times in droves) to see the giant Buddha, the rest of Hase is also worth exploring. Hase-dera, a temple high on the hillside between Kotoku-in and Hase Station, contains a 9-meter (30-foot)-tall gilded wooden statue of Kannon, said to have washed ashore at Hase after being carved and tossed into the sea by a monk from Nara during the 8th century. Nearby is Yuigahama Beach, a peaceful weekday spot with broad ocean views that’s ideal for a picnic away from the worst of Kotoku-in’s crowds. And just a few stations away are the historic temples and shrines of Kamakura (page 36), Japan’s capital in the 13th century, which with an early start you can comfortably combine with Hase to make a great day trip from Tokyo.
Opening Times Open daily 8 a.m. to at least 5 p.m. Getting There Hase is three stops from Kamakura on the Enoden Line. Kamakura is best reached from Tokyo on the JR Yokosuka Line (via Yokohama) or on the JR Shonan-Shinjuku Line from Shinjuku or Shibuya. Contact Kotoku Temple: kotoku-in.jp Admission Fee ¥200.
5 Tosho-gu Shrine, Nikko
A memorial to Japan’s first shogun–in a stunning setting
Garish or grand? The Tosho-gu Shrine complex in Nikko (page 41) most definitely