Before we started our Kumano Kodo hike, we visited two popular Japanese cities, Tokyo and Kyoto, and added a stop in Osaka after that adventure. We began our trip overall in Tokyo and hit the ground running, almost literally. Overwhelmed at first by the big and busy train stations, we decided to cover huge swaths of this huge city on foot. We were out the door within 30 minutes of checking in and walked around the Akasaka area for several hours that evening, grabbing a casual dinner and then crashing after our 16-hour + travel day.

On our next, first full day, we put in well over 30,000 steps, rambling through the Chiyoda district of government buildings, then Azabudai Hills, Shibuya City, Yoyogi Park, Harajuku, Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden, and Shinjuku City.

There was a brief stop for an açaí bowl in Harajuku, but other than that, we just kept moving.

The city was surprisingly quiet! We expected throngs of people (we got most of them at the famous Shibuya Scramble crossing) and the busy sounds of traffic and city life, but the streets were mostly uncrowded and the silence in many parts of the city was astonishing. (We found out the next day – when we finally went into Tokyo Station – that it was a three-day holiday weekend.)

We had booked our only “nice” dinner of the entire trip at Isana Sushi Bar, a tiny, eight-seat omakase restaurant with a kind and patient sushi chef who served us 12 courses of fish, seafood, and vegetables and explained everything in very good English.

We had seen the movie “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” and thought it looked fun but slightly daunting to be served at one of these teeny traditional places, so when I found Isana and its good reviews for being unintimidating, we booked it very early in our planning. We joined two Australian women on a university graduation trip, a couple from Madrid on their honeymoon, a businessman from New York City, and a Japanese man who now lives in Spain.

We saved “old Tokyo” for another day and spiced that up with some trendy areas that our son recommended, places that would have never hit our radar otherwise. Again, we chose to make our way on foot, starting with a rainy walk to the Imperial Gardens.

After taking some misty photos while balancing an umbrella overhead, we soldiered on to Tokyo Station to see its unique architecture, modeled after Amsterdam’s Central Station, and to preview our routing to Kyoto a few days later.

(I’m glad and not glad we checked. The station was an utter madhouse and we felt panicky about our ability to navigate it when we really needed to. Later, we learned that many lines had shut down that day due to a typhoon, and when we went back on our real travel day, we were fine.)

Stubborn walkers that we are (and freaked out by the train station chaos), we decided to hoof it to Senso-ji, the city’s oldest temple, in the Asakusa neighborhood, with stops along the way in Akibahara and Ueno. We knew nothing about Akibahara, known as “Electric Town,” a shopping area for things we had little interest in (video games, manga, anime, and electronics) but which our youngest son had told us was very fun to walk around.

He was right! We gawked at the window displays, signage, and general busyness of the area and then moved on to Ueno and its big city park which, after the visual stimulation of Akibahara, we found a bit boring. On we trudged in the rain, eventually giving in to the damp cold and our hunger, stopping to eat a nice warm meal on a quiet neighborhood street.

Senso-ji was our final stop for the afternoon. Built in 645 AD and the oldest Buddhist temple in Tokyo, Senso-ji is a brilliantly colored, five-story pagoda with swooping eaves. The walk toward the temple itself is a huge shopping thoroughfare, jam-packed with both local and foreign visitors.

No longer in the market for travel tchotchkes, we pushed through and just walked slowly and aimlessly through the temple grounds, enjoying the smell of incense (me – it always reminds me of the Himalayas) and the thought that we were done sightseeing for the day (J)!

In addition to all the city rambling we did in Tokyo, we also bought tickets well in advance for teamLab Borderless, an exhibit by an art collective with several shows in the city. Billed as a “museum without a map” the artworks transcend rooms, intermingling with each other and viewers alike, creating novel experiences for all involved.

We’d seen similar shows in U.S. museums, but this was a whopper, and we spent several hours exploring the rooms and images throughout. It was a perfect, sparkly send-off from bright-lights Tokyo.

Up next: the bullet train to Kyoto and a whole different vibe!