Dream of getting lost in the intriguing back streets of Tokyo

Lost in a seemingly impenetrable metropolis, Amelia Lester discovered that the charms of the Japanese capital are revealed to those who roam.

The first three days of my first trip to Tokyo were a bust. The city felt like an endless CBD, filled with office towers and underpasses. It rained a lot and none of the decent coffee places opened until lunchtime.

I’d read enough to know that getting lost was the point – Tokyo was built to confuse invaders and before its neartotal destruction during World War II, there were twice as many T-junctions and dead ends as thoroughfares.

But the city is now a hyper-modern metropolis, which made me think I had to be equally business-like in my approach to exploring it. Every morning I made a detailed itinerary but would arrive back at my hotel in the evening frustrated that I’d only managed to hit two or three stops.

On my final full day I resolved to just wander. Akasaka, the district where I was staying, is an even tighter Gordian knot than the rest of the city. Instead of squinting down at a blue dot on my phone, I looked up and noticed that every block teemed with curiosities. Right next to the hotel was a restaurant specialising in fugu or blowfish, which can be deadly if not served correctly. Behind it was an exquisite wooden machiya, a traditional townhouse, with a lanternlined rock garden in which every pebble looked hand-picked.

That evening it was raining again but the weather only added to the drama of stumbling on Nonbei Yokocho or Drunkard’s Alley, a string of tiny, beguiling bars only steps away from the neon glare of Shibuya Crossing. Perched on one of three stools with a whisky highball in hand, I whiled the night away exchanging broken bilingual pleasantries with a proprietor justly proud of her prawn tempura. The next day I ordered my first coffee just after noon, finally on local time.