Bunkyo — Gardens, Guitar Street & Tokyo Dome

Koishikawa Kōrakuen Garden

Koishikawa Kōrakuen (小石川後楽園) is one of Tokyo's oldest and finest traditional gardens, originally laid out in the early Edo period (1629) for the Mito Tokugawa clan. While Shinjuku Gyoen and Hamarikyu get more tourist attention, Kōrakuen is the garden that serious garden enthusiasts visit — its design meticulously replicates famous Chinese and Japanese landscapes in miniature, with a central pond that reflects the surrounding hills and a variety of seasonal plantings that ensure something is blooming in every month.

The garden's scale is manageable — an unhurried circuit takes about 45 minutes — making it ideal for a morning visit before continuing to other Bunkyo attractions. Spring cherry blossoms are spectacular here, with the blossoms reflected in the Ōizumi Pond. Autumn foliage (late November to early December) is equally dramatic. The adjacent Koishikawa Botanical Garden (University of Tokyo) is separately worth a visit if you have time — its greenhouses and medicinal plant collections are among the best in Japan.

Ochanomizu: Guitar Street

Ochanomizu (お茶の水) station sits at the centre of one of Tokyo's most unexpected commercial clusters — a dense concentration of musical instrument shops, particularly guitar specialists, that has made this area the destination for musicians across Japan and increasingly across Asia. The cluster began in the 1950s when a few shops opened near the music-school district and has grown into several blocks of specialist dealers covering everything from ¥5,000 beginner acoustics to vintage 1960s Stratocasters at prices that require serious thought.

The main shopping streets are Kanda Surugadai and the surrounding blocks — the density is best understood by simply walking through it. Key stores include Shimamura Music, Ishibashi Music, Guitar Planet (vintage American), Ochanomizu Gakki, and numerous smaller specialists covering brass, woodwind, classical, and recording equipment. Even if you are not buying, the window displays of rare instruments and the sound of testing rooms audible from the street make the area genuinely engaging.

Tokyo Dome & LaQua

Tokyo Dome is the home ground of the Yomiuri Giants baseball team and one of Japan's most recognisable buildings — the white inflatable roof that gives it the nickname "The Big Egg." Even if baseball isn't on the agenda, the surrounding Tokyo Dome City complex is worth a visit for LaQua, a large hot spring spa facility fed by natural underground springs. The water is genuinely brown from minerals — unusual for a city spa — and the facilities include outdoor bathing areas and rest rooms that make a half-day visit easy to fill.

The Thunder Dolphin roller coaster threads between the surrounding buildings and through the dome's roof gap — one of the more unusual coaster layouts in Japan. The complex also contains a hotel, bowling, and enough restaurants to constitute a meal plan.

Yushima & Nezu: Old Bunkyo

The neighbourhoods of Yushima and Nezu, in the eastern part of Bunkyo, preserve more of pre-modern Tokyo than most areas inside the Yamanote Line. Nezu Shrine (根津神社) has a famous tunnel of torii gates — less crowded than Fushimi Inari in Kyoto and easily accessible by subway. Adjacent Yanaka (technically Taitō ward but the border is invisible on the ground) continues into one of Tokyo's best-preserved historic streetscapes. The combination of Nezu Shrine plus a walk through to Yanaka Ginza makes an excellent half-day itinerary.

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