Tokyo in 48 Hours: Neon, Noodles, and a New Camera

IT'S A LONG FLIGHT

Tokyo has always been on the list. One of those cities you know you have to experience at some point — it's non-negotiable. So when an Asian cruise came up and needed a starting point, the decision was straightforward. A few nights in Tokyo before boarding the ship felt less like a pre-cruise stop and more like the perfect way to kick off the whole adventure. The cruise could wait. Tokyo was first.

Base Camp: Ikebukuro

We were staying in Ikebukuro, which sits in the northwest of the city and is — depending on who you ask — either Tokyo's slightly-less-famous answer to Shibuya, or the city's best-kept secret. I'm going with the latter. It's a proper neighbourhood. Big, loud, alive, and not overrun with tour groups doing the same three Instagram spots.

From the hotel window, the city just goes. In every direction, as far as you can see — buildings, signs, movement. At night it becomes something else entirely. I stood there for a good ten minutes on the first evening, camera in hand, trying to work out where to even start. Which is exactly the right problem to have.

The metro is your best friend in Tokyo — in theory. Every guide you read will tell you to get a Suica card at the airport: tap in, tap out, effortless. What the guides don't mention is what happens when you can't actually get one. We asked at multiple stations, stood in several queues, spoke to several very polite and entirely baffled members of staff, and somehow never managed to communicate what we were after. In the end we just paid at the machines each time, which worked perfectly well and possibly suited us better anyway. The signage is excellent, the trains are clean and punctual, and by London standards the whole thing is a revelation — just don't necessarily count on the Suica card going smoothly. Or maybe that's just us.

The Camera Situation

BIC Camera

Ikebukuro is home to one of Tokyo's legendary electronics stores — Bic Camera — and I made the mistake of going in on day one. I say mistake. I mean one of the best decisions I've made in recent memory. I came out with a Fujifilm XM5, which is a camera I had been eyeing for a while, and which I then had to learn to use from scratch, in one of the world's most photogenic cities, with approximately 48 hours on the clock.

This is what I call the Stu Chard Travel Method: see a camera you've been eyeing, buy it, and learn it on the job in one of the world's most photogenic cities. As it happens, the XM5 is smaller and lighter than my usual XT-5, which made it the perfect Tokyo companion — slipping into a jacket pocket, ready when you needed it, never getting in the way. And what better place to get to grips with a new camera than Japan? By day two it felt like I'd had it for months.

The Ikebus, the Rain, and the Streets

Riding the Ikebus

Ikebukuro has its own little community shuttle called the Ikebus — and it is, frankly, adorable. A small, rounded electric bus that loops around the neighbourhood at a pace that invites you to actually look at things rather than hurtle past them. You get a nice tour f the city for little money.

Then the rain came.

Now, rain in a foreign city is either a disaster or a gift, depending entirely on your attitude. I've always been in the gift camp, and Tokyo in the rain is genuinely spectacular. The streets go glossy. The neon signs get multiplied in every puddle. Everyone produces an umbrella from nowhere — the Japanese are extraordinarily prepared for precipitation — and suddenly the whole city is this moving composition of reflections, light, and colour.

For street photography, it's about as good as it gets. Tokyo is already a street photographer's dream — the density, the layers, the sheer variety of people and moments — but add rain and it becomes something close to cheating. I shot for hours. The XM5, to its credit, kept up.

Day Trip One: Shibuya

The Shibuya crossing is one of those things you've seen a thousand times and still can't quite prepare yourself for. You stand at the edge of it, waiting for the lights to change, and then they do, and suddenly a few hundred people are crossing from every direction simultaneously, in perfect non-colliding chaos, and somehow it works.

I took approximately one thousand photographs. This is not an exaggeration.

One small note on getting here: some of the Tokyo metro lines are circular, which means that if you're not paying attention — or if you had one too many whiskies in the hotel bar the night before — it is entirely possible to board a train going the wrong way around the loop and end up somewhere that is very definitely not where you intended. This may or may not have happened to us. More than once. I'm not confirming anything.

Once you get it, you get it

The surrounding area is worth a wander too — shops, cafés, side streets that peel off in every direction and reward whoever is prepared to follow them without a plan. The metro station itself is worth a look if you're into infrastructure, which I increasingly am. These stations are cities unto themselves.

Day Trip Two: Senso-ji and Ueno Park

Senso-ji in Asakusa is Tokyo's oldest temple, and the contrast it provides against the surrounding city is extraordinary. You pass through the Kaminarimon gate, its enormous red lantern hanging overhead, and walk the Nakamise shopping street to the temple itself. On a busy day — and it's usually a busy day — it's a swirl of people, incense smoke, colour, and sound.

The photography opportunities are relentless. People praying at the incense burners, their hands cupped in the smoke. Visitors tying their omikuji fortune papers to the wire frames, hundreds of them fluttering in the breeze. The five-storey pagoda rising beyond the main hall. Women in kimono moving carefully across the stone courtyard. I could have spent a full day here and still felt like I'd missed things.

From Asakusa, Ueno Park is a short ride or a reasonable walk. It's one of those places that breathes differently from the rest of the city — green, a bit quieter, a little more reflective. There's a large pond, museums, a zoo, and the kind of meandering paths that invite you to slow down.

The Oasis Situation

I need to mention Tower Records.

We were in Shibuya, and stumbled into Tower Records — nine floors of music, with a sign above the entrance that reads "No Music No Life," a statement I have absolutely no argument with. We'd gone in for a browse and discovered the whole place had been taken over by Oasis. Giant photographs everywhere. Merchandise on every surface. And outside, a small but committed gathering of Japanese Oasis fans, some in the scarves, one wearing what I can only describe as a full Noel Gallagher face mask.

I stood there for a moment, holding my new camera, trying to decide if this was actually happening. It was. I don't know if it was a listening event, a pop-up, or just Tower Records being magnificently Tower Records, but it was one of those only-in-this-city moments you couldn't have scripted. Tokyo does that constantly — turns a corner and hands you something completely unexpected. No Music No Life. No argument here.

The Hot Plate, the Steel Table, and the Point of All This

Lunch one day was yakiniku — one of those restaurants where they bring you raw meat, vegetables, and sauces, set a hot plate into the table, and leave you to get on with it. It is, once you've worked out which things need longer than others, one of the most enjoyable ways to eat I've ever encountered. Convivial, unhurried, interactive. My wife, to her credit, did not once say "come on" while I was attempting to photograph the food before cooking it.

Our last evening took a different turn entirely. We ended up at one of Tokyo's "meat is the star" restaurants — And as a bonus, we found ourselves sharing the table with a group of people who were also boarding our cruise the following day. It was one of those happy accidents that travel occasionally throws at you — strangers becoming shipmates over a shared slab of Wagyu beef and a cold beer or two.

After dinner, the hotel bar called. A Japanese whisky. The city spread out forty floors below. Tokyo at night, from height, is a grid of light that stretches until it meets the horizon. I sat there with a glass of Suntory and thought: two days. I'd had two days and I'd barely scratched the surface.

That's the thing about Tokyo. You don't do Tokyo in a weekend. But you get enough of a taste to know that you'll be back. The city is polite enough to welcome you, photogenic enough to ruin you for other destinations, and chaotic enough to ensure you're never bored for a single moment.

Hotel Bar

Jump on the Ikebus. Pay at the metro machines and try not to go the wrong way around the loop. Buy a camera if you need one. And leave yourself enough time for a whisky before bed, and the next adventure.