Tokyo/East

Eastern Tokyo covers the wards of Adachi (足立), Katsushika (葛飾), Edogawa (江戸川), Kōtō (江東) and Arakawa (荒川). Neighboring Sumida (墨田) is covered in its own article, as is the flashy bayside shopping and entertainment district of Odaiba.

Understand
Eastern Tokyo is largely residential and industrial. The one major attraction here is the new Toyosu Market, the world's largest fish market famed for its tuna auctions, which replaced the old Tsukiji Market in 2018.

Tourist Information Sites
(from north to south)
 * Adachi: Local tourist association, with integrated machine translation.
 * Arakawa: ArakawAmazing! is the ward's official multilingual guide site.
 * Katsushika: Local tourist association, Japanese-only.
 * Edogawa:The ward's official website has a multilingual tourism section.
 * Kōtō: Local tourist association, with integrated machine translation.

By rail
To Adachi: Tobu Skytree Line, Umejima Station or Gotanno Station.

To Koiwa: Chuo-Sobu from Shinjuku and Akihabara in the west or Chiba outside of Tokyo.

See

 * A pamphlet showing the visitors' course outlines the three buildings. The Wholesale Market Building is where fish are auctioned to intermediate brokers. Many of those are located in the Intermediate Wholesale Building, where they peddle to resellers and restaurants (but not the general public). In the Fruits and Vegetables Building, a similar tiered structure sells produce, meat, and flowers. Fish auctions start at 05:00 and run roughly 1 hour, sometimes less; you should arrive early to get a good view. Other auctions follow until around 08:00. Most of the market activity is done by 11:00, after which it becomes a bit of a ghost town until the next morning. Visitors are separated from the market in upstairs viewing galleries, and it's still impressive even though you can't hear or smell anything through the glass. For the tuna auction, 120 people per day can observe from a bottom-floor observation deck, from which you can hear the auctioneers' chant. Tickets are granted by lottery; you must apply online or by phone in the first half of the month that precedes your desired visit (which means between 3-7 weeks in advance).  On the roof, a minimalist grass deck offers good views of Tokyo Bay. While you can't enter the lower markets, there are many dozens of shops and eateries where you can sample some sushi or purchase a persimmon; however, if you want to get face to face with a fish, visit the many shops in Tsukiji's outer market instead.







Do




Eat
"Monja-yaki" (もんじゃ焼き) is a Kanto-area specialty, similar to okonomiyaki. Once people used to draw letters with ingredients on the hot plate for fun before eating because "Monja-yaki" means "letter cake". Monja-yaki's basic batter is made of water, flour and soy sauce. Ingredients can include cabbage, grated yam, crushed tempura, cuttlefish, shrimp, slices of meat, and so on. Although Tsukishima is Tokyo's best-known neighborhood for monjayaki, it's popular here as well.