Popular tourist hotspots in Tokyo come saturated with heavy footfall and worn with notoriety. They end up lacking in local life, and foil the chance to dive into other vital elements of the capital.
Visitors are unlikely to fathom Tokyo's depths by stumbling down Shinjuku's Omoide Yokocho, joining the throngs under blooming sakura (cherry trees) in Nakameguro, snapping a selfie at Sensoji or being bewildered by Akihabara. These comprise an abridged version of the capital. After all, it is vast.
For every well-known neighborhood, there are even more lesser known — those in-between or further-out places, areas that thread together a tapestry of the capital.