Tokyo in 72 Hours Without Becoming a Cautionary Tale

You cannot 'see Tokyo' in 72 hours. You cannot see Tokyo in 72 weeks. What you can do is have three excellent days where you eat 14 meals, walk 30 miles, and leave already planning the next trip.

Day 1: Shinjuku and Shibuya. Sleep off the jet lag with a long morning. Then go to Omoide Yokocho around 5 PM for yakitori on tiny stools in tiny alleys. Cross Shibuya scramble at night when the rain reflects every neon sign. Pretend you're in a music video. You sort of are.

Day 2: Asakusa, then a long walk along the river to Akihabara. Senso-ji temple at opening (7 AM) is half-empty and twice as beautiful. Coffee in a tiny kissaten on a side street. Spend the afternoon getting overstimulated in Akihabara on purpose.

Day 3: Daikanyama and Naka-Meguro. Tokyo's most underrated neighborhood — beautifully designed bookshops, slow coffee, the canal lined with cherry trees. End at a tiny bar in Golden Gai. There are 200 bars in a four-block area, each one seating six people. Find one that calls to you. Trust the process.

Eat the convenience store food. 7-Eleven egg salad sandwiches are a cultural achievement. Lawson fried chicken is better than most restaurants in my hometown. This is not a joke.

Get a Suica card the moment you land. The subway looks like a bowl of spaghetti and is actually the most efficient system on Earth once you stop panicking.

Reserve dinners ahead. The 'walk in and find a tiny place' fantasy works for ramen and izakayas. It does not work for the omakase counter you saw on YouTube. Either book or move on.

Last tip: leave one afternoon completely unplanned. Get off the train at a station you don't recognize. Wander. Get lost. Eat the thing in the window. That's the trip you'll remember.