Widely considered to be one of the prettiest spots in Tokyo, the Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden has long been a favorite spot for weary Tokyoites looking to escape the city's concrete jungle. However, if it's crowds you're hoping to escape, you might want to look elsewhere.
A pleasant and almost entirely-overlooked neighborhood in the north of the city, Komagome is defined by narrow alleys lined with shops and restaurants, and is home to one of Tokyo's best gardens: the Rikugi-en, originally built at the end of the seventeenth century.
Across the Sumida River from Nihonbashi, Fukagawa is one of Tokyo's original fifteen wards. We spent a day wandering around its uncrowded streets, allowing the district to surprise us with an excellent museum, a tranquil garden and, for lunch, a delicious bowl of the neighborhood specialty, Fukugawa Meshi.
Kaiseki is Japan's haute cuisine, a traditional meal of several individually-crafted dishes. It's as expensive as it sounds, and since our budget won't allow us to repeatedly indulge in kaiseki, we wanted to be careful about the restaurant in which we'd experience it. After considerable research, we decided upon Tofuya-Ukai. I doubt we could have made a better choice.