What's the must-see thing in Tokyo?

Senso-ji at 6:30am is a different place than Senso-ji at noon. You walk through the Kaminarimon gate — the big red lantern, you've seen it in every photo of Tokyo — and Nakamise-dori stretches ahead of you, 250 metres of shuttered stalls. The temple courtyard smells of sandalwood incense rising from the jokoro brazier. Pigeons scatter across wet flagstones. The five-story pagoda catches first light and turns the colour of old pennies. By 10am, something like 30,000 daily visitors have filled the approach and you're shuffling shoulder-to-shoulder past ¥500 souvenir fans. The building hasn't changed. Your experience of it has.

The practical case is just as strong. Senso-ji costs nothing — no ticket, no reservation, no timed entry slot. It's a three-minute walk from Asakusa Station on the Ginza Line or Tobu Skytree Line. Nakamise-dori's stalls open around 9:30am, and that's when you come back for fresh ningyo-yaki — little cakes filled with sweet red bean paste, still warm from the iron mould, about ¥400 for a bag of five. The kibitango rice dumplings at Nakamura-ya, three on a stick for ¥350, have been made the same way since 1945. Grab them and walk the hundred metres to the Sumida River promenade. Tokyo Skytree rises directly across the water, and on a clear morning the reflection sits clean in the river. That's your photo.

To be fair, you could make a case for Meiji Shrine in Shibuya instead. The forested approach through 120,000 trees planted a century ago feels like leaving the city entirely — cool and green even in August, with the gravel path muffling traffic until you forget you're standing between Harajuku and Shinjuku. But Meiji Shrine is a Shinto shrine with a single torii walk and an open courtyard. Senso-ji is a Buddhist temple compound with the Kaminarimon gate, Nakamise-dori, the Hozomon gate, the main hall, the five-story pagoda, and Asakusa-jinja shrine right beside it — all within one city block. For a first visit, the density of things to see per square metre tips the decision. Mind you, Meiji Shrine is still worth a morning on day two or three.

One more thing worth knowing: Asakusa sits on the northeast side of central Tokyo, which means your morning here connects naturally to Ueno — two stops on the Ginza Line for the Tokyo National Museum, which opens at 9:30am — or to Akihabara, four stops south, if that's your thing. Or just stay in Asakusa itself. The backstreets west of the temple, around Hoppy-dori, are full of tiny yakitori joints that open for lunch and smell like charcoal and tare sauce by 11:30am. That's a better first-day lunch than anything in Shibuya, and about half the price. A full skewer set with a draft beer runs ¥1,500 to ¥2,000 — roughly $10 to $13 USD. You'll be sitting on a plastic stool under a paper lantern, elbow-to-elbow with salarymen on their break. That is the meal.