Koto City

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TOKYO / KOTO CITY / HIDDEN HISTORY

Tokyo has a museum built around one fishing boat.

Not a replica. Not a digital projection. The actual wooden vessel fills the building from bow to stern.

Its name is Daigo Fukuryu Maru—Lucky Dragon No. 5.

In 1954, its 23 crew members were caught in radioactive fallout from a United States hydrogen-bomb test at Bikini Atoll. Years later, the abandoned boat was found on Tokyo’s former garbage island and saved by citizens.

Today it stands inside a quiet, free museum in Yumenoshima Park, less than 15 minutes by train from Tokyo Station and almost entirely absent from most Tokyo itineraries.

A normal fishing trip entered the nuclear age

Daigo Fukuryu Maru was built in Wakayama Prefecture in 1947, first as a bonito boat and later converted for deep-sea tuna fishing from Yaizu Port in Shizuoka.

On March 1, 1954, the crew was fishing about 160 kilometers east of the test site at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

They saw a sudden flash in the west. Minutes later came a sound like an earthquake. Then white material began falling onto the deck.

The fishermen called it shi no hai—“ashes of death.” It was pulverized coral made radioactive by the explosion.

The 23 men worked to return to Japan while the fallout remained on their boat, clothes, skin and catch. By the time they reached Yaizu, all were suffering symptoms of radiation exposure.

The bomb was far larger than expected

The test was called Castle Bravo. The bomb produced a yield of 15 megatons—about 1,000 times the explosive power of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, according to the exhibition hall.

Its radioactive contamination spread beyond the test area. Daigo Fukuryu Maru became the best-known Japanese vessel involved, but it was not the only one. The museum’s research states that hundreds of Japanese fishing vessels landed contaminated tuna during 1954.

The Marshall Islands suffered the direct and continuing consequences of 67 American nuclear tests conducted between 1946 and 1958. Several communities remain displaced from their home islands.

This is why the exhibition hall prefers the broader term “Bikini Incident”. A story centered only on one Japanese boat can make the affected Marshallese communities—and the wider Pacific contamination—disappear from view.

The tuna became national news

The contaminated catch was called “atomic tuna.” Fish markets searched for affected shipments, tuna was buried or destroyed, and public fear spread far beyond one crew.

The boat’s chief radio operator, Aikichi Kuboyama, died in September 1954 after months of treatment. His death became a powerful symbol in Japan’s growing movement against atomic and hydrogen bombs.

The incident also changed Japanese popular culture. The original Godzilla appeared in cinemas later that year, opening with a fishing boat destroyed by a mysterious flash at sea. The connection is not subtle. Japan’s giant radioactive monster arrived in the same national atmosphere of shock and fear.

That does not make this a Godzilla attraction. It makes the museum one of the real places that helps explain why the film meant more than a man in a monster suit stepping on buildings.

How did the boat end up in a Tokyo park?

After radiation levels fell and safety was confirmed, the vessel was rebuilt as a training ship named Hayabusa Maru for the Tokyo University of Fisheries.

It was retired in 1967, sold for dismantling and eventually abandoned on reclaimed land at Yumenoshima.

At that time, Yumenoshima was known as a huge garbage-disposal site. The name means “Dream Island,” which is either optimistic urban planning or extremely aggressive rebranding.

Citizens learned that the vessel was lying there and organized a movement to preserve it. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government opened the exhibition hall in 1976.

The boat survived because ordinary people decided that throwing it away would also throw away the memory attached to it.

What it feels like inside

The building is shaped around the ship. Walk in and the scale becomes immediate: roughly 30 meters long, six meters wide, 15 meters high and 140 tons.

Wooden deep-sea fishing boats like this were once part of Japan’s postwar struggle to secure food. The hull is therefore two kinds of evidence at once—evidence of ordinary working life and evidence of nuclear damage.

Exhibits cover the crew, contaminated tuna, radioactive rain, nuclear testing across the Pacific, settlements between Japan and the United States, the Marshall Islands and the international anti-nuclear movement.

Outside are the vessel’s engine, a tuna memorial and a memorial to Aikichi Kuboyama.

English information is available on the museum’s website, but the official site states that no English guide is provided for group tours. Use your phone’s translation camera for Japanese panels and allow enough time to read slowly.

A museum that asks more than “what happened?”

The obvious question is what happened to the fishermen.

The more difficult questions come later. Who was warned? Whose suffering became visible? Whose remained distant? What does a country save, and what does it allow to disappear?

This small Tokyo museum does not provide a comfortable sightseeing break. It provides something more valuable: a physical object that makes an enormous historical event human-sized.

Twenty-three men went to catch tuna. One wooden boat returned carrying evidence of a nuclear test occurring far beyond Japan.

Make it a Yumenoshima half-day

1. Shinkiba Station — arrive by the JR Keiyo Line, Tokyo Metro Yurakucho Line or Rinkai Line.
2. Daigo Fukuryu Maru Exhibition Hall — allow 60–90 minutes if you want to read rather than simply photograph the ship.
3. Yumenoshima Park — walk through the eucalyptus trees and open lawns.
4. Yumenoshima Tropical Greenhouse Dome — add the greenhouse if it is open and you want a complete change of atmosphere.
5. Tokyo Yumenoshima Marina — finish beside the modern boats, a strange visual contrast with the wooden vessel inside the museum.

From Sunamachi Ginza, use a local bus or connect through Toyocho and Shinkiba depending on your starting point. Check a live route planner on the day because the best connection changes by time.

Before you go

• Official name: Daigo Fukuryu-Maru Exhibition Hall / 東京都立第五福竜丸展示館.
• Address: Inside Yumenoshima Park, 2-1-1 Yumenoshima, Koto City, Tokyo.
• Current hours: 9:30–16:00.
• Admission: Free.
• Regular closure: Mondays, or the following weekday when Monday is a public holiday.
• Access: About ten minutes on foot from Shinkiba Station.
• Language: The official website has English information; bring camera translation for detailed Japanese panels.
• Photography: Follow the signs and staff instructions inside the exhibition hall.
• Latest information: Check the museum’s news page before traveling because temporary closures and events may affect access.

Tokyo is good at replacing what no longer seems useful.

This boat escaped that fate.

It was built to catch fish, exposed by a bomb, renamed, retired, abandoned and finally saved—not because it was beautiful, but because forgetting it would have been easier.

Some places are worth visiting because they are fun.

This one is worth visiting because it refuses to let history become abstract.

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Researched using current information from the Daigo Fukuryu-Maru Exhibition Hall, its official history and official access guide, checked September 12, 2026. This is a researched cultural guide, not a firsthand visit report. Hours and exhibition conditions may change.

Making a day of it: Yumenoshima is two stops from Toyosu on the Yurakucho line, and most people combine this free museum with teamLab Planets (date-priced from about ¥3,800; Klook sells the official ticket at face value) or the fish market. Do the boat first, in the morning, when the hall is empty; the contrast with the art museum afterwards is the point.

Where this joins the rest of the east side

Yumenoshima is the seaward end of Koto City. The Onagi River checkpoint and the Yokojukken boat park are the same ward’s inland water story; Kiyosumi-Shirakawa, with the Fukagawa Edo Museum, is two stops from Tokyo Station on the way back. All the ward’s stories are on the Koto City page.

Quick answers

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TOKYO / KOTO CITY / LOCAL WATERWAYS

Tokyo has a park where you can row a wooden boat, pass a tiny rice field and pay just ¥100 for half an hour on the water.

It is not beside Mount Fuji. It is not in a preserved village. It is wedged between apartment blocks, local roads and the everyday neighborhoods of Koto City.

This is Yokojukken-gawa Shinsui Park—a 1.9-kilometer waterside park close to Sunamachi Ginza, built from part of an old canal.

Come here after eating your way through the shopping street. Tokyo will suddenly become slower, greener and slightly harder to explain.

A river turned into a neighborhood park

Yokojukken-gawa means roughly “the river ten ken wide.” A ken was an old Japanese unit of length; ten of them is about 18 meters. The name is refreshingly practical. Edo-era branding departments were apparently busy elsewhere.

The canal once formed part of the dense water network that moved people and goods through eastern Tokyo. After decades of industrialization and flood-control work, part of it was reshaped into a public waterside park.

Koto City describes the theme as “a waterfront for residents.” That phrase explains the place better than “tourist attraction.” People walk dogs, children look for fish, older residents sit under trees, and almost nobody is performing Tokyo for an audience.

The strange luxury of ¥100 boating

At the park’s boat area, the current official price is ¥100 per boat for 30 minutes. There are rowing boats and pedal boats, subject to the operating calendar, weather and availability.

One hundred yen in central Tokyo usually buys you almost nothing. Here, it buys temporary command of a very small vessel.

The route is calm and contained. You are not launching into Tokyo Bay or navigating behind a container ship. You pedal or row past trees, bridges and residential buildings while local life continues on both banks.

Bring ¥100 coins or other accepted cash denominations because the facility does not provide change. Children of elementary-school age or younger must ride with a guardian, and bad weather can close the boats without much ceremony.

A wooden boat from another version of Tokyo

The park’s most unusual experience is the traditional Japanese wooden boat ride.

Koto City owns seven wooden boats, with six kept at Yokojukken-gawa Shinsui Park. Volunteers from Wasen Tomo no Kai operate them to preserve the traditional skill of steering with a long wooden oar.

On scheduled operating days, individuals can register at the Umibe boarding point without advance reservations. The ride lasts about 20 minutes and is currently free. Visitors may also be offered the chance to try working the oar.

It is not a theme-park reconstruction with recorded shamisen music. The boat is real, the technique is real, and the apartment buildings in the background are also extremely real.

Operation depends on the official calendar, rain, wind and heat conditions. Check the Koto City schedule on the morning of your visit. Do not build an international itinerary around one small volunteer boat without checking first.

The view that explains eastern Tokyo

At the northern end, the Yokojukken River meets the Onagi River near Onagigawa Clover Bridge. The X-shaped pedestrian bridge connects all four corners of the crossing.

From here, you can see the canal running through ordinary residential Tokyo, with the Tokyo Skytree rising beyond the rooftops. It is a useful reminder that the tower did not land in an empty sightseeing district. It stands above neighborhoods with waterways, workshops, public housing and shopping streets.

If you read our guide to the Onagi River and Nakagawa boat checkpoint, this is where the two stories connect: one canal carried Edo’s cargo; the other has become a place where locals spend a quiet Sunday.

Yes, Tokyo has a rice field here

Continue south and the park becomes a collection of small ecological zones: a bird island, iris beds, ponds and a community rice field.

The rice field is not large enough to threaten Japan’s agricultural statistics. That is not the point. It lets neighborhood children see planting, growing and harvesting inside one of the world’s biggest cities.

In early summer, the Japanese irises add deep purple and white around the water. At other times, the attraction is quieter: ducks, turtles, reeds, insects and—if you are lucky—a kingfisher.

This part works best when you stop trying to “complete” the park. Sit down. Watch the water. Accept that the next major attraction may be a duck doing absolutely nothing.

Important: the water obstacle course is closed

Older articles may show children crossing floating bridges and rope obstacles at the park’s aquatic playground.

Do not arrive in swimwear based on a five-year-old blog post. Koto City currently lists the aquatic obstacle course as closed until the end of April 2027 because of bridge reconstruction work.

The rest of the park, the walking route and activities shown as operating on their current calendars can still be enjoyed. Conditions change, so always check the official pages before visiting.

Make it a Sunamachi half-day

1. Sunamachi Ginza Shopping Street — start with yakitori, tempura, dumplings or whatever has the longest local queue.
2. Walk toward Yokojukken-gawa Shinsui Park — allow roughly 15–25 minutes depending on where you leave the shopping street and which park entrance you use.
3. Traditional boat or ¥100 boat — check the operating schedule before visiting.
4. Walk south through the park — look for the bird habitat, rice field and seasonal flowers.
5. Finish at Toyocho Station — the southern part of the park is about a ten-minute walk from the station.

Allow three to four hours including food. The route is easy to combine with our Onagi River guide, but doing both properly turns it into a full day.

Before you go

• Official name: Yokojukken-gawa Shinsui Park / 横十間川親水公園.
• Area: Between Ogibashi and Toyo in Koto City, Tokyo.
• Admission: The park itself is free.
• Rental boats: Currently ¥100 per boat for 30 minutes; operating days vary.
• Traditional wooden boat: About 20 minutes and currently free on scheduled days; individuals do not need advance reservations.
• Traditional boat reception: 10:00–14:15 at the Umibe boarding point on operating days.
• Weather: Boats may stop because of rain, strong wind or dangerous heat.
• Aquatic obstacle course: Closed until the end of April 2027 as currently announced.
• Access: About ten minutes on foot from Toyocho Station to the park’s southern section; buses stop closer to other sections.

Tokyo does not always need to be spectacular.

Sometimes it is better when lunch costs a few hundred yen, the boat costs one coin, and the biggest event of the afternoon is discovering a rice field between apartment buildings.

That is the local side.

Related: How to actually get a sumo ticket in Tokyo (and what it really costs). Outside the three tournament months, the nine sumo experiences in Tokyo compared — one of them a few minutes from this park, on the shopping street.

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Researched using current information from Koto City’s park guide, its traditional wooden boat guide, rental boat information and aquatic playground closure notice, checked September 12, 2026. This is a researched neighborhood guide, not a firsthand visit report. Schedules and conditions may change.

If you want the shopping street explained: a two-hour guided walk of Sunamachi Ginza exists on Viator, rated 5.0, from about ¥17,000 for a private group. It is a lot of money for a street you can eat your way down alone for ¥1,500, and that is the honest recommendation; book it only if you want the shopkeepers talked to on your behalf. The boats and the wooden-boat rides above are free or ¥100 either way.

Where this joins the rest of the east side

Make it a canal day: lunch on Sunamachi Ginza, the boats, then the Onagi River to the Nakagawa checkpoint museum, or south to the buried lock at Komatsugawa. The evening version of being on Tokyo’s water is a yakatabune dinner boat from Asakusa.

Quick answers

This article contains affiliate links to booking sites. If you book through them, LOCAL SIDE JAPAN earns a small commission at no extra cost to you. The place itself is free and is described first. How this site is made →

TOKYO / KOTO CITY / WATERWAYS

Tokyo once had a checkpoint for boats.

Before trucks, container ports and next-morning delivery, rice, salt, vegetables and people moved through Edo by water. Boats entering the city along the Onagi River could be inspected at the Nakagawa checkpoint.

The checkpoint is gone. The river is still here.

Today, you can follow this forgotten logistics route through eastern Koto City—starting with lunch at Sunamachi Ginza Shopping Street and ending beside the reconstructed checkpoint at the Nakagawa Funabansho Museum.

Begin with the cargo you can eat

Start at Sunamachi Ginza hungry.

This 670-meter neighborhood shopping street is lined with independent food shops, greengrocers, fishmongers and stores selling the objects required for normal life. The prepared-food counters are the main attraction: yakitori, tempura, oden, dumplings and whatever smells best when you arrive.

Buy a few things for lunch, but remember that this is a working local market. Keep entrances clear, ask before photographing shop staff and do not turn someone’s grocery run into an obstacle course.

The food also fits the day’s story. Koto City grew through trade, waterways and the movement of everyday goods. You are about to follow one of the routes that helped feed Edo—after being fed yourself.

The canal that carried salt into Edo

The Onagi River is not a natural river. It was cut through the low wetlands east of Edo soon after Tokugawa Ieyasu entered the city in 1590.

One of its most important jobs was carrying salt from Gyotoku, in present-day Chiba, toward Edo. Salt preserved food, supported cooking and kept a growing city alive. The canal also became a major route for rice, vegetables and other cargo arriving from eastern Japan.

Parts of the riverside are now known as the Shio no Michi—the Salt Road. The name makes it sound like an epic mountain trail. In reality, it is a calm urban walkway used by dog walkers, cyclists and residents who are not thinking about seventeenth-century supply chains.

Why did boats need a checkpoint?

Edo controlled movement carefully. In 1661, a boat checkpoint was transferred to the eastern end of the Onagi River, near its meeting with the Nakagawa waterways.

Officials monitored boats, passengers and cargo entering or leaving Edo. The system helped regulate traffic and watch for prohibited movement, including weapons and people traveling without authorization.

Think of it as border control, customs and a traffic office sharing one waterfront desk—without barcode scanners and with considerably more paperwork made from actual paper.

For years, the precise location was based largely on historical evidence. Excavations in 1995 uncovered posts, foundation stones and other remains, strongly confirming the site of the Nakagawa checkpoint.

A museum for the Tokyo that moved by boat

The Nakagawa Funabansho Museum stands about 50 meters north of the archaeological site.

Its central display reconstructs the checkpoint with a large model. Exhibits explain the boats, cargo and river systems that connected Edo with inland Kanto and the northeast. Another gallery displays traditional Japanese fishing rods and tackle.

This is not a museum of shoguns waving swords. It is a museum about systems: who moved, what they carried, where they were stopped and how an enormous city functioned before engines.

An English museum leaflet is available online. Most interpretation is easiest with translation assistance, so keep your phone’s camera-translation function ready.

Tokyo’s river elevator

Continue toward the Arakawa Lock Gate. The concrete structure allows boats to travel between the Old Nakagawa and the Arakawa even when their water levels differ.

A boat enters the chamber, a gate closes, and the water level rises or falls before the opposite gate opens. Koto’s official tourism information describes a possible difference of up to about three meters.

Calling it a “river elevator” is more appealing than calling it hydraulic infrastructure, but both descriptions are accurate.

You may not see a boat pass during your visit. The structure is still worth seeing from the surrounding paths, especially if you enjoy the industrial side of Tokyo.

The Old Nakagawa feels far from central Tokyo

Near Higashi-Ojima Station, the canal landscape opens into the Old Nakagawa. Grassy banks, low bridges and wide skies replace the tight streets around Sunamachi.

The Kyu-Nakagawa River Station provides a small waterfront base near the meeting point of the rivers. Depending on the day, the area may host local events or boating activities. On an ordinary afternoon, it is simply a good place to stop and watch the water.

Tokyo is usually introduced vertically: towers, observation decks and buildings stacked above train stations. This part of the city makes more sense horizontally. Follow the waterways and the history connects itself.

A practical half-day route

1. Sunamachi Ginza Shopping Street — arrive before lunch and explore the food counters.
2. Shio no Michi Bridge and Onagi River — walk or cycle east along the canal.
3. Arakawa Lock Gate — see the modern river-control structure.
4. Old Komatsugawa Lock remains — a fragment of an earlier water-management system.
5. Kyu-Nakagawa River Station — take a break beside the water.
6. Nakagawa Funabansho Museum — finish with the reconstructed Edo checkpoint.
7. Higashi-Ojima Station — the museum is about five minutes away on foot.

Allow four to five hours including lunch. A bicycle shortens the travel time, but walk it if you enjoy quiet residential streets and canals.

Before you go

• Museum address: 1-15 Ojima 9-chome, Koto City, Tokyo.
• Current museum hours: 9:30–17:00, with last admission at 16:30.
• Current museum admission: Adults ¥200; discounted youth admission is available.
• Regular closure: Mondays, or the following day when Monday is a public holiday, plus year-end and exhibition-change closures.
• Transport: Start near Sunamachi Ginza and finish at Higashi-Ojima Station. Check your preferred walking, bus or bicycle route on the day.
• Weather: Much of the route is outdoors with limited shade. Avoid the hottest afternoon hours in summer.
• Latest information: Confirm museum openings and riverside restrictions on the official websites before visiting.

Most travelers meet Edo through castles, samurai and famous temples.

Along the Onagi River, you meet the people checking cargo, steering boats and making sure the city had enough salt for dinner.

History looks different from the delivery entrance.

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Researched using current information from Koto City, the Nakagawa Funabansho Museum, Koto City Tourism Association and the Sunamachi Ginza Shopping Street, checked September 11, 2026. This is a researched neighborhood guide, not a firsthand visit report. Conditions may change.

Guided or not: the only tour that covers this route is a private two-hour walk of Sunamachi Ginza with a guide (Viator, 5.0, from about ¥17,000 per group). The shopping street is the part where a guide adds something, ordering and explaining; the river walk and the museum need none, and the museum leaflet is in English. Most people should do it alone.

Sumo before the walk, if you want it

I run this one. Treat what follows as an interest declared, not a neutral recommendation — everything else on this site is chosen without one.

This route starts at Sunamachi Ginza, and so does the sumo stable I run. The 11:00 session finishes at 12:30, which is roughly when this walk wants you to be eating your way down the shopping street anyway — so the two fit together on one half-day without rearranging anything. Ninety minutes with former professional wrestlers: bouts from the edge of a real ring, then the ring itself if you choose to.

¥11,000 adults · ¥7,700 children 4–12 · under 4 free · 11:00 and 15:30 · 90 minutes · closed Wednesdays and Thursdays · 3-38-16 Kitasuna, a few minutes from the shopping street.

If a hands-on session is not what you want, the other three ways to see sumo — the grand tournament at the Kokugikan, a real stable’s morning practice, and the commercial shows — are compared with prices in Sumo in Tokyo: morning practice vs sumo show vs the tournament, and tournament tickets are explained in how to actually get a ¥3,500 seat. And if you are weighing up the nine individual places rather than the three kinds, we compared all of them on the four things the listings leave out: whether everyone gets in the ring or it is decided by lottery, whether you wear a real mawashi or an inflatable suit, how close you sit, and what you eat.

Where this joins the rest of the east side

The checkpoint is one end of the delta’s water story; the buried Komatsugawa lock is a few minutes further along the river, and Kiyosumi-Shirakawa, with the Fukagawa Edo Museum’s rebuilt boat landing, is the upstream end. The ¥100 boats are on the way.

The rest of the ward, in order, is in Things to Do in Koto City: 12 Places.

Quick answers

This article may contain affiliate links to booking sites. If you book through them, LOCAL SIDE JAPAN earns a small commission at no extra cost to you. How this site is made →

Tokyo is famous for neon lights, giant crossings and neighborhoods that never seem to sleep.

But some of the best parts of the city are much quieter.

Walk a few stations away from the places everyone already knows, and Tokyo begins to feel completely different.

Small shopping streets. Family-run stores. Old signs. People buying dinner on their way home.

This is the Tokyo we love most.

The Tokyo between the tourist attractions

Most first-time visitors build their Tokyo trip around names they already know: Shibuya, Shinjuku, Asakusa, Harajuku.

There is nothing wrong with those places. They are famous for a reason.

But Tokyo is a city of neighborhoods.

And once you start exploring those neighborhoods, the city becomes much more interesting.

You begin to notice the small things.

A tofu shop that has been making the same thing for decades.

A tiny yakitori stand filling the street with smoke.

A bicycle parked outside a family home.

A shopkeeper chatting with the same customers they have known for years.

Why local shopping streets matter

Japan’s neighborhood shopping streets are known as shotengai.

They are not designed for tourists.

They exist because people actually live there.

You might find a butcher, a fish shop, a bakery, a tea store, a small restaurant and a place selling something so specific that you have no idea how it has survived for 50 years.

That is exactly why we like them.

A good shotengai is not an attraction.

It is a piece of everyday life that visitors are temporarily allowed to step into.

Don’t arrive with a checklist

The best way to explore a local neighborhood is to stop trying to optimize every minute.

Walk slowly.

Turn down a street because it looks interesting.

Buy something even if you are not completely sure what it is.

Sit somewhere that does not appear in every travel guide.

The goal is not to collect landmarks.

The goal is to notice the place.

A small reminder: you are visiting someone’s neighborhood

Local does not mean secret, and it definitely does not mean private property is suddenly a tourist attraction.

Be curious, but be respectful.

・Ask before photographing people up close.
・Avoid blocking narrow streets or shop entrances.
・Support small businesses when you can.
・Do not treat ordinary residents like part of the scenery.

The best local travel experiences happen when visitors and residents can both enjoy the same place.

This is the side of Tokyo we want to show you

LOCAL SIDE JAPAN is not about pretending famous places are bad.

It is about showing that Japan has much more to offer beyond them.

Sometimes the place you remember most will not be a temple, a tower or a famous crossing.

It might just be a quiet street, a tiny shop and a conversation you did not expect to have.

Come for Japan. Leave with a story.

The sumo stable on one of these streets

I run this one. Treat what follows as an interest declared, not a neutral recommendation — everything else on this site is chosen without one.

The shopping street this article is really about is Sunamachi Ginza in Koto City, and the reason I know it well is that I work on it. The Sunamachi Ginza Sumo Stable is a 90-minute session with former professional wrestlers: you watch bouts from the edge of a real ring, then step into it yourself if you want to. It is on a working shopping street rather than in a tourist district, which is the whole argument of this article, so it would be odd to leave it out — and equally odd to pretend I found it.

¥11,000 adults · ¥7,700 children 4–12 · under 4 free · 11:00 and 15:30 · 90 minutes · closed Wednesdays and Thursdays · 3-38-16 Kitasuna, Koto City.

If a hands-on session is not what you want, the other three ways to see sumo — the grand tournament at the Kokugikan, a real stable’s morning practice, and the commercial shows — are compared with prices in Sumo in Tokyo: morning practice vs sumo show vs the tournament, and tournament tickets are explained in how to actually get a ¥3,500 seat. And if you are weighing up the nine individual places rather than the three kinds, we compared all of them on the four things the listings leave out: whether everyone gets in the ring or it is decided by lottery, whether you wear a real mawashi or an inflatable suit, how close you sit, and what you eat.

Where this joins the rest of the east side

Start with the streets themselves: Kirakira Tachibana in Kyojima, Sunamachi Ginza, Yanaka on a weekday, Shibamata, and Kita-Senju’s standing bars. Sunamachi Ginza has no food tour and does not need one — the reasoning is in food tours by area, where ¥2,000 of croquettes here is set against ¥15,000 for the same number of bites at Tsukiji. Every ward is on the map on the homepage, and the things worth booking are on the Experiences page.

Quick answers

Related: How to actually get a sumo ticket in Tokyo (and what it really costs).