My fourth trip to my favorite city, May 31 to June 4, 2026. This page records it with the two best things humans have for that: stories, and statistics. (The numbers are demo data.)
Going to Japan without a bowl of late-night ramen doesn't count as going. Three shops in five days, and the best bowl was at an unnamed counter in Nakameguro — one in the morning, six stools, tonkotsu broth thick enough to coat the spoon. A bottle of Ramune on the side. I'll be back.
The people you meet for the first time on a trip are usually the ones you hope to know for years. This lot included, but wasn't limited to:
Riding through the secondhand book district and back, all I could think about was how many books one street can hold. The fog of old paper made my head spin a little, but between looking up and looking down, that faint dizziness mixed with the evening crosswind and left me unusually alert, pedaling through unfamiliar alleys.
The sky cleared on the way back, and a proper Tokyo sunset erased the whole damp, grey afternoon. Everything felt right again; a beautiful, highly engineered modern street. I've never had such a contradictory experience on a single block.
| Day | Walk km | Subway km | Taxi km |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sun | 8.2 | — | 15.8 |
| Mon | 12.4 | 17.9 | — |
| Tue | 16.3 | 6.1 | — |
| Wed | 9.2 | 22.4 | 1.7 |
| Thu | 5.8 | — | 16.1 |
| Total | 51.9 | 46.4 | 33.6 |
The rooftop at the place I was staying looked out over Yoyogi Park, sun going down behind the treeline. On the last night I climbed the ladder with two vending-machine yuzu sodas and watched the day die slowly. A quiet moment like that would be boring in a film, and I'm glad I didn't try to film it.
This is my fourth trip to Tokyo, and every time I say the same thing to anyone who'll listen: "Someday I'm going to live in this city for a year." To me it's the perfect mix of good food, unhurried streets, and a kind of restrained liveliness.
This time I said it to myself again in the night wind at Hamamatsucho. Maybe the back half of my thirties should happen here. We'll see.