Sofia Costa

Tokyo is enormous and somehow polite about it. I went looking for the quiet parts first. Meiji Shrine at dawn, gravel raked, crows louder than the city. Yanaka in the morning, old wooden houses and potted plants spilling onto the lane, a neighborhood that survived the war and seems quietly aware of it.

Later I gave in to the rest. Breakfast at the Tsukiji outer market at six. A kissaten with siphon coffee and old jazz records. Golden hour along the Sumida River, then Asakusa under lanterns. At night, Shibuya Crossing from above, yakitori under the Yurakucho tracks while trains rattled overhead, and a bar in Golden Gai that seats six. I was the seventh. Somebody moved.