Three meal/recovery venues are intentionally still open, so only fixed places appear. Each link stops at a walking, Metro or taxi change; the guide governs both bookings.
JAPAN 2026
FISH
CLOTHES
FOG
SKEWERS
BREAKFAST FROM 07:30, IN ABOUT 21:00
THE WESTWARD LINE
2026
DAY XIII · 14 SEPTEMBER · 東京
THE ONLY HOUR OUTDOORS IS THE FIRST
Everything under open sky happens before half past nine. The market keeps its own clock — the trade until nine, everybody else after — so breakfast is taken inside the trade's hours and the manners are not optional. Then the day goes indoors and stays there: twelve floors of one shop and seven of another on a single Ginza address, half an hour of artificial fog above a wall of glass blocks, and an afternoon in a museum with no map. It ends at a counter in Azabu-jūban, twenty-three small dishes long. Not one thing on it is booked.
DIRECT ON THE HIBIYA LINE; ¥356 PARTY; EXIT 5, TWO MINUTES TO THE DOOR
IV
AZABUDAI → AZABUJŪBAN, BY TAXI
A SHORT COMFORT RIDE ON ¥1,500 CARRIED AS AN ALLOWANCE
V
AZABUJŪBAN → MITSUKOSHIMAE, BY METRO
NAMBOKU THEN GINZA; ¥418 PARTY, ¥209 EACH ON IC; KEY ABOUT 21:00
Five legs, and only one of them costs anything worth arguing about. The metro does the work — three rides at published fares, two of them on the Hibiya Line, which links every fixed point of this day except the last. The single taxi is a comfort ride out of Azabudai to the counter, carried at ¥1,500 as an allowance rather than a quote. The rule that shapes the route is a negative one: after the museum, nothing goes back to Ginza.
Tsukiji keeps two clocks. The trade has the lanes from six until nine and everyone else is asked to wait, so this breakfast sits almost wholly inside the first window and the market's own rules are not optional: eat where you buy, do not touch the fish, do not bargain, ask before photographing. The ground itself was made in 1657 out of the ashes of the Meireki fire; the fish market only arrived in 1935, after the earthquake destroyed Nihonbashi's, and when the wholesale halls left for Toyosu the shops around them stayed. Sunday was a closing day on the market calendar. This Monday is not. No venue is chosen — not here, and not for the seated hour in Ginza that follows.
Ginza Komatsu is one address, 6-9-5, split into an East building and a West one facing Chūō-dōri, Suzuran-dōri and Nishi-Gobangai — and between them it holds three tenants. UNIQLO takes the whole East building, floors one to twelve, five thousand square metres, eleven to nine daily; the operator calls it the largest UNIQLO in the world. Dover Street Market has seven floors of the West, eleven to eight, conceived by Rei Kawakubo and Adrian Joffe and describing itself as beautiful chaos — the first opened in Mayfair in September 2004. Both unlock at eleven, and eleven is the door to be at. If the shopping runs long, Dover Street Market is what gets cut. No list has been written yet, and the 12:50 lunch has no venue.
The exhibition is named after the building it stands in — “5 Chome 4-1 Ginza, Tokyo”, Ann Veronica Janssens' first solo show in Japan, open since the eleventh and running to 11 January. Born in Folkestone in 1956 and working out of Brussels, she used plywood, glass and concrete through the late seventies and, from about 1990, light, sound and artificial mist. A dozen or so works: Rose, seven spotlights and artificial dust three and a half to four and a half metres across; a piece in blue glitter; swings with heat-reactive seats; and a new one, Donut, made out of her own voice. Free, eighth and ninth floors, eleven to seven. Take the lift on the Sony-dōri side — the shop's own lifts do not go up. Thirty minutes is thin.
One level under Azabudai Hills, in Garden Plaza B, and permanent since February 2024: a museum with no map, where the works leave their rooms and mix. On the Asymmetry of the Universe runs to 8 October and adds two series to Light Sculpture — Flow. In Asymmetric Existence one sculpture is made of two — a form that appears only in the room and is never reflected, and a form that exists only inside the mirror — so the glass stops being a boundary and becomes the thing that joins them. In Chromatic Existence the sculpture is made of the order of colour instead of matter. Open 08:30 to 21:00, last entry an hour before; closed some Tuesdays, not this Monday. Pricing is dynamic: ¥4,600 each is what the official site showed on 27 August, and the door charges ¥200 more. Afterwards the plan stays around Azabudai until about ten past six.
Fourth floor of the F1 Plaza building at 1-6-7 Azabu-jūban. ¥5,980 each, tax included, service extra — and the booking page does not say what the service is. Twenty-three items: appetisers, five principal skewers, pinchos-style small ones and vegetables, run through in about ninety minutes inside a two-hour seat. Two guests minimum, seats cannot be chosen online, the room is entirely non-smoking down to e-cigarettes. Cancel by the day before; a same-day no-show is charged the whole course. Name what you would rather not eat when booking — the course works through many parts of the bird — and skip the closing carbonara after Sunday's pasta. Omino Kamiyachō stays the premium backup at about ¥35,430 for two before drinks, its second sitting at 19:30. Neither is booked.
The third of four Nihonbashi nights, and the only hotel of the block. Mitsukoshimae is the door the day leaves by and the door it comes back to, about nine in the evening. The booking is still the loose thread it has been all week: on 25 August the hotel could not find the direct reservation by name and asked for booking-completion evidence, and its agreement to hold the forwarded cases hangs on that same verification. There is a public bath; checkout on the 16th is at noon.
¥2,630
TRANSPORT, PARTY THREE METRO LEGS · ONE TAXI ALLOWANCE
¥9,200
TEAMLAB BORDERLESS, PARTY ¥4,600 EACH ON 27 AUG · DYNAMIC PRICE
¥11,960
IGUCHI, PARTY ¥5,980 EACH TAX IN · SERVICE EXTRA
¥23,790
DAY TOTAL FROM, TWO TRAVELLERS THREE MEALS UNCHOSEN · SHOPPING NOT COUNTED
IF THE DAY SLIPS — half past two at Borderless and half past six at the counter are the frame. Shopping overruns → Dover Street Market is cut first, never UNIQLO and never the dinner. Heat or rain → the indoor spine already is the plan, and the taxi to dinner is already in it. Iguchi gone → recheck Omino Kamiyachō's 19:30 sitting and its far higher cost before switching, and do not reinstate Torishige. Whatever happens, nothing goes back to Ginza after Azabudai.
Three meal/recovery venues are intentionally still open, so only fixed places appear. Each link stops at a walking, Metro or taxi change; the guide governs both bookings.
JAPAN 2026FISHCLOTHESFOGSKEWERSBREAKFAST FROM 07:30, IN ABOUT 21:00THE WESTWARD LINE2026
DAY XIII · 14 SEPTEMBER · 東京
THE ONLY HOUR OUTDOORS IS THE FIRST
Everything under open sky happens before half past nine. The market keeps its own clock — the trade until nine, everybody else after — so breakfast is taken inside the trade's hours and the manners are not optional. Then the day goes indoors and stays there: twelve floors of one shop and seven of another on a single Ginza address, half an hour of artificial fog above a wall of glass blocks, and an afternoon in a museum with no map. It ends at a counter in Azabu-jūban, twenty-three small dishes long. Not one thing on it is booked.
DIRECT ON THE HIBIYA LINE; ¥356 PARTY; EXIT 5, TWO MINUTES TO THE DOOR
IV
AZABUDAI → AZABUJŪBAN, BY TAXI
A SHORT COMFORT RIDE ON ¥1,500 CARRIED AS AN ALLOWANCE
V
AZABUJŪBAN → MITSUKOSHIMAE, BY METRO
NAMBOKU THEN GINZA; ¥418 PARTY, ¥209 EACH ON IC; KEY ABOUT 21:00
Five legs, and only one of them costs anything worth arguing about. The metro does the work — three rides at published fares, two of them on the Hibiya Line, which links every fixed point of this day except the last. The single taxi is a comfort ride out of Azabudai to the counter, carried at ¥1,500 as an allowance rather than a quote. The rule that shapes the route is a negative one: after the museum, nothing goes back to Ginza.
FARES VERIFIED, TAXI ESTIMATED中央通り — THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY'S LINEFIVE LEGS, ¥2,630
WALK-IN, NOTHING BOOKED築地場外市場 — A DELIVERY CART IN THE LANES07:30 TO 09:15
HALF PAST SEVEN · 築地場外市場
THE TRADE HOUR IS NOT YOUR HOUR
Tsukiji keeps two clocks. The trade has the lanes from six until nine and everyone else is asked to wait, so this breakfast sits almost wholly inside the first window and the market's own rules are not optional: eat where you buy, do not touch the fish, do not bargain, ask before photographing. The ground itself was made in 1657 out of the ashes of the Meireki fire; the fish market only arrived in 1935, after the earthquake destroyed Nihonbashi's, and when the wholesale halls left for Toyosu the shops around them stayed. Sunday was a closing day on the market calendar. This Monday is not. No venue is chosen — not here, and not for the seated hour in Ginza that follows.
Ginza Komatsu is one address, 6-9-5, split into an East building and a West one facing Chūō-dōri, Suzuran-dōri and Nishi-Gobangai — and between them it holds three tenants. UNIQLO takes the whole East building, floors one to twelve, five thousand square metres, eleven to nine daily; the operator calls it the largest UNIQLO in the world. Dover Street Market has seven floors of the West, eleven to eight, conceived by Rei Kawakubo and Adrian Joffe and describing itself as beautiful chaos — the first opened in Mayfair in September 2004. Both unlock at eleven, and eleven is the door to be at. If the shopping runs long, Dover Street Market is what gets cut. No list has been written yet, and the 12:50 lunch has no venue.
NO LIST WRITTEN — T-11銀座 — THE PAVEMENT OUTSIDE THE SHOPS11:00 TO 12:40
FREE, AND NEW — OPENED 11 SEP銀座メゾンエルメス — THIRTEEN THOUSAND GLASS BLOCKS13:40 TO 14:10
TWENTY TO TWO · ル・フォーラム
HALF AN HOUR OF ARTIFICIAL FOG
The exhibition is named after the building it stands in — “5 Chome 4-1 Ginza, Tokyo”, Ann Veronica Janssens' first solo show in Japan, open since the eleventh and running to 11 January. Born in Folkestone in 1956 and working out of Brussels, she used plywood, glass and concrete through the late seventies and, from about 1990, light, sound and artificial mist. A dozen or so works: Rose, seven spotlights and artificial dust three and a half to four and a half metres across; a piece in blue glitter; swings with heat-reactive seats; and a new one, Donut, made out of her own voice. Free, eighth and ninth floors, eleven to seven. Take the lift on the Sony-dōri side — the shop's own lifts do not go up. Thirty minutes is thin.
One level under Azabudai Hills, in Garden Plaza B, and permanent since February 2024: a museum with no map, where the works leave their rooms and mix. On the Asymmetry of the Universe runs to 8 October and adds two series to Light Sculpture — Flow. In Asymmetric Existence one sculpture is made of two — a form that appears only in the room and is never reflected, and a form that exists only inside the mirror — so the glass stops being a boundary and becomes the thing that joins them. In Chromatic Existence the sculpture is made of the order of colour instead of matter. Open 08:30 to 21:00, last entry an hour before; closed some Tuesdays, not this Monday. Pricing is dynamic: ¥4,600 each is what the official site showed on 27 August, and the door charges ¥200 more. Afterwards the plan stays around Azabudai until about ten past six.
NOT BOUGHT — T-14光の彫刻 — INSIDE THE LIGHT SCULPTURE14:30 TO 17:15
NOT BOOKED — T-33麻布十番商店街 — THE STREET BELOW THE COUNTER18:30 TO 20:30
HALF PAST SIX · 中目黒いぐち
TWENTY-THREE DISHES INSIDE NINETY MINUTES
Fourth floor of the F1 Plaza building at 1-6-7 Azabu-jūban. ¥5,980 each, tax included, service extra — and the booking page does not say what the service is. Twenty-three items: appetisers, five principal skewers, pinchos-style small ones and vegetables, run through in about ninety minutes inside a two-hour seat. Two guests minimum, seats cannot be chosen online, the room is entirely non-smoking down to e-cigarettes. Cancel by the day before; a same-day no-show is charged the whole course. Name what you would rather not eat when booking — the course works through many parts of the bird — and skip the closing carbonara after Sunday's pasta. Omino Kamiyachō stays the premium backup at about ¥35,430 for two before drinks, its second sitting at 19:30. Neither is booked.
The third of four Nihonbashi nights, and the only hotel of the block. Mitsukoshimae is the door the day leaves by and the door it comes back to, about nine in the evening. The booking is still the loose thread it has been all week: on 25 August the hotel could not find the direct reservation by name and asked for booking-completion evidence, and its agreement to hold the forwarded cases hangs on that same verification. There is a public bath; checkout on the 16th is at noon.
¥2,630
TRANSPORT, PARTY THREE METRO LEGS · ONE TAXI ALLOWANCE
¥9,200
TEAMLAB BORDERLESS, PARTY ¥4,600 EACH ON 27 AUG · DYNAMIC PRICE
¥11,960
IGUCHI, PARTY ¥5,980 EACH TAX IN · SERVICE EXTRA
¥23,790
DAY TOTAL FROM, TWO TRAVELLERS THREE MEALS UNCHOSEN · SHOPPING NOT COUNTED
IF THE DAY SLIPS — half past two at Borderless and half past six at the counter are the frame. Shopping overruns → Dover Street Market is cut first, never UNIQLO and never the dinner. Heat or rain → the indoor spine already is the plan, and the taxi to dinner is already in it. Iguchi gone → recheck Omino Kamiyachō's 19:30 sitting and its far higher cost before switching, and do not reinstate Torishige. Whatever happens, nothing goes back to Ginza after Azabudai.
