Hotels
The question of where to stay in Tokyo is really a question of who you want to be while you're there. The city is enormous and its neighbourhoods are genuinely distinct — not in a guidebook way, but in the way that determines whether your mornings feel like an accident or an intention.
Stay in Shinjuku and you are in the engine room — convenient, relentless, never quiet. Stay in Yanaka and you are in a different century. Shimokitazawa gives you record shops and coffee that takes twenty minutes to make. Asakusa gives you temples at dawn before anyone else arrives.
We stayed in two places across the month. Neither was perfect. Both were exactly right.
Occasional dispatches — new journal entries, quiet places we've just come back from, and the odd reading list. No schedule. No noise.
