The best things to do in Tokyo this weekend

One of Tokyo's biggest and best traditional festivals is back this year for three consecutive days. First held back in 1312, the event celebrates the three men who founded Asakusa's Sensoji Temple, and last year, it drew in over a million visitors. 

The highlight of the festival comes on Sunday May 19, when three enormous mikoshi (portable shrines) are shuttled through the streets of Asakusa. Local residents usually take turns – and often fight each other for the chance – to carry them. Be sure to check the real-time route map to secure a good vantage point to see the mikoshi parade, which kicks off at 8am and continues on throughout the day. 

Saturday May 18 will feature the Chonai Mikoshi Rengo Togyo, where 100 or so mikoshi from 44 districts in the area are brought together to be purified at Asakusa Shrine, followed by a procession of priests, musicians and more. The gathering will take place behind Sensoji Temple's main hall from noon. 

While Saturday’s and Sunday's events bring the most visitors, the main procession on Friday May 17 at 1pm may offer a better opportunity to photograph the mikoshi passing through the famous Kaminarimon gate, as there will most likely be smaller crowds.

Do note that a slice of Japan that usually isn't that visible to visitors is in full view here. The festival is partially known (abroad) for the number of yakuza who attend and participate. If you notice a group of very heavily tattooed, often shirtless Japanese men and women, try to not stare or offend them. Be sure to ask politely if you want to take photos. Generally speaking though, they're there to show off their strength – plus their tattoos – and thus seem to like the attention they get.

Kagoshima's biggest festival, named after a famous folk song from the seaside city in Kyushu, takes over Shibuya with parades, songs and dance performances on May 18 and 19. The procession takes place between 12noon and 5pm on Sunday, moving along Dogenzaka-dori and Bunkamura-dori streets. Expect to see dancers in colourful yukata and happi (festival jackets) accompanied by traditional drummers.

During the festival, you can sample a selection of Kyushu delicacies at the Uniqlo Dogenzaka store. If the festivities inspire you to take a trip to Kagoshima, make sure to visit the city’s tourist information booth right there and then.

This year, the parade is complemented by a separate Kagoshima Shochu & Music Fest, held concurrently on both days (12noon to 8pm) at the Bloom Gate event space within the Shibuya Sakura Stage complex. Here you can enjoy shochu from 17 distilleries based in Kagoshima, which is widely regarded as the kingdom of shochu. Prices are set at ¥300 a cup and with 34 brands of shochu on offer, you’re sure to find some that’s to your liking. 

The usually laidback and refined streets of Kagurazaka are coming alive with music and revelry during this two-day celebration of Japanese traditional arts. The event revolves around the stages at Zenkokuji Temple and Akagi Shrine, but you’ll find entertainment spread out all over the area. You’ll see performances like rakugo, kodan and biwa storytelling, traditional music using Japanese drums and flutes, Noh theatre performances, and more.

Expect to see shinnai nagashi performers (usually comprise two singers and a shamisen player; Saturday 4.30pm and 7pm, Sunday 1pm and 3pm) strolling the neighbourhood as well as artists performing Japanese traditional ballads known as Edo hauta (Saturday 5.30pm, Sunday 12noon and 2pm).

There will also be an area dedicated to family-friendly activities and entertainment like traditional Japanese spinning tops and kendama experiences for kids. If you understand Japanese, you can learn more about Kagurazaka's history by participating in the stamp rally walking tour on Sunday.

Immerse in an interactive show of lights, sounds and projections at Kyu Shiba Rikyu Gardens. To celebrate the 100th anniversary of its public opening, Kyu-Shiba Rikyu Gardens is hosting a special night visit for four days from May 15 to May 18. Themed around the concept of passing time, this Tokyo green space is divided into three areas, each for a different period in Japan’s history: Edo, Meiji/Taisho, and the present day. 

The Edo zone features a walking path illuminated with glowing wagasa umbrellas and andon light fixtures that originate from the period. Meanwhile, the Meiji/Taisho zone utilises interactive projection mapping technology to emulate a moon casting light on the ground through stained glass, a Western invention that was introduced to Japan during this period.

Encompassing the most significant section of the former feudal garden, however, is the audiovisual installation by digital content production house 1 - 10 and Junichi Akagawa. Using the latest advancement in audiovisual science, nearly 100 lighting elements spread across the venue will be synced up with speakers and projectors to create an immersive sensorial experience.

Tickets are ¥1,000 (free for four-year-olds and younger kids) and they are now available via the Line app. Note that a Line app account is necessary to buy a ticket.

Craving soba, somen, ramen, udon, or all of the above? The Kanmen (meaning ‘dry noodles’) Grand Prix is returning to Tokyo in May for you to decide the best soup-less noodle dish out of 36 contenders. Held for two days from May 18 to 19 at the central square of Komazawa Olympic Park, this free-entry food festival is an opportunity to taste noodle dishes from across Japan, at an affordable price of ¥500 per bowl. 

Be sure to not miss the chewy Sanuki udon topped with Sanuki olive beef from Kagawa prefecture, the udon capital of Japan. If you’re feeling particularly adventurous, try some somen crepes made with fresh fruit, azuki beans and fried somen noodles. (If you want to try making it at home, here’s the recipe provided by the organisers.)

Pair your selection of dry noodles with a cold can of Yona Yona Ale from Yo-Ho Brewing or another craft beer from Spring Valley.

Entry to the noodle festival is free. You’ll just buy food and drink as you go. While some stores accept cashless payments, be sure to bring cash as well. The first 1,500 visitors per day will get a free soda-flavour Garigari-kun popsicle, the perfect remedy for a hot sunny day.

Love a good deal? Don’t miss Tokyo Outlet Week, Japan's largest fashion outlet event featuring over 70 Japanese and international women’s labels marked down between 50 and 90 percent. Keep an eye out when browsing, as there will be some surprise items priced at just ¥1.

For this season, Tokyo Outlet Week takes place at Sunshine City in Ikebukuro from May 17 to 19. Some of the brands available at the sale include Doux Archives, Maison de Fleur, Moussy, United Arrows, Ungrid, Shel'tter, Vis and more.

Entry to the sale is free, but you must sign up for a ticket online ahead of time.

Want to make room in your closet for new clothes? The event will also have a donation box for you to drop your unwanted clothing and accessories. The donated items will be given to children's homes through the NPO Good Life. Items accepted for donation include tops, bottoms, hats, shoes and belts.

The Oedo Antique Market, the largest and oldest outdoor market of its kind in Japan, is great for picking up some cool art, unique handicrafts or vintage decorative items. Keep an eye out for real Edo-era (1603-1867) treasures hidden among the heaps of merchandise, which range from ceramics and clothing to ukiyo-e prints. Currently, it's being held on the first and third Sunday of the month at the Tokyo International Forum. You can check the exact market dates updated on the website.

You've seen them on RuPaul's Drag Race and now you can see them live on stage. This May, some of the world’s top drag queens are coming to Tokyo for Japan’s biggest international drag show. This will be the drag event's fourth stint in the city following its first show in January 2023.

This year's international headliners include Alaska, Courtney Act and Willam, who will be joined by familiar faces from Tokyo’s local drag queen scene, with unstoppable forces like Sera Tonin, Labianna Joroe and Vera Strondh. 

The event begins at 7pm (doors open from 6pm) on May 19, but those with meet and greet tickets (¥30,000 per person inclusive of event entry) will be able to enter the venue from 4.30pm to say hi to their favourite idols before the show. General standing tickets are also available online for ¥12,000 per person, but they're selling out fast so you’ll want to book them sooner rather than later!

If you’re craving some Taiwanese food this spring, then drop by Tokyo Skytree Town for its Taiwan Festival. Head over to the fourth floor of Sky Arena until May 26 to feast on Taiwanese food throughout the day. There are several stalls offering popular Taiwanese cuisine such as lu rou fan (braised pork over rice) and da ji pai fried chicken.

You can also shop for Taiwanese goods and even enjoy massages and fortune telling. The dining area is decorated with red lanterns to give it a Taiwanese night market feel.

Tokyo’s Kameido Tenjin Shrine is famous for its wisteria flowers, and with good reason – the shrine has over 50 wisteria trees, which usually reach their flowering peak between late April and early May. 

This annual festival features a handful of food stalls and an evening light up from sunset until 9pm. The purple blooms also look quite stunning during the day when you can get a spectacular view of Tokyo Skytree in the background. The shrine is in the shitamachi (downtown) district of Tokyo, so while you’re here, make sure to take a stroll around the area to explore the old-fashioned local shops and eateries.

To check the current flowering status, visit the shrine's Instagram.

Tachikawa's Showa Kinen Park isn't content with merely hyping sakura: its Flower Festival takes place over three months and celebrates the blooms of tulips (in April), poppies and rapeseeds (May) and water lilies (May), of course in addition to the cherry blossoms in March and April.

2024 marks a special milestone for Showa Kinen Park, as the massive green space is celebrating its 40th anniversary. To commemorate the occasion, park officials will be planting a staggering 1.8 million nemophila plants, which will turn into a gorgeous sea of blue once they bloom. 

Along with flower-viewing, the park will be hosting a number of floral-themed events, and dedicated photo spots will be set up on the premises. Photo sessions will include time to take pics among the park’s 250,000 colourful tulips without crowds in the background, while a special spot will allow you to capture the nemophila accented with soap bubbles.

The annual Fuji Shibazakura Festival is returning this spring with a staggering 500,000 pink, purple and white blooms from April 13 to May 26. With its seemingly endless fields of shibazakura (pink moss) and view of majestic Mt Fuji on the horizon, it's no wonder that this annual spring festival out at Lake Motosu in Yamanashi typically attracts hordes of Tokyoites over Golden Week. 

In addition to the eight kinds of shibazakura, you’ll get to see other colourful blooms like cherry blossoms, grape hyacinth, poppy anemone and forsythia. While you’re here, it’s also worth checking out the adjacent Peter Rabbit-themed English Garden, decorated with around 300 kinds of plants as well as figurines of the characters from the storybook. 

One of the best ways to get here is by highway bus. A round-trip ticket including festival entry fee starts from ¥7,800, with the bus departing from Bus Terminal Shinjuku, Mark City Shibuya, Futakotamagawa Rise and Tokyo Station. It takes you directly to the Fuji Shibazakura Festival in around two and a half hours. We recommend making reservations in advance because seats can fill up quickly during spring.

Otherwise, you can opt for the two-hour-long Limited Express Fuji Excursion train from Shinjuku to Kawaguchiko Station, and hop on the Fuji Shibazakura liner shuttle bus for another 50 minutes to get to the venue.

Taking over the expansive outdoor lawn within the children’s play area at Meiji Shrine’s Outer Gardens, the Forest Beer Garden distinguishes itself from other boozy events in town with its lush green surrounds and bubbling waterfall.

The popular two-hour all-you-can-eat (¥5,880) option includes everything from barbecue beef, pork and lamb to veggies, yakisoba noodles, grilled onigiri and even ice pops. It includes an all-you-can-drink selection of seven kinds of beers including Kirin and Heineken, in addition to whisky, sours, wine and soft drinks. Despite being one of the largest beer gardens in Tokyo with a capacity for around 1,000 people, the event can get extremely busy at weekends, so advance bookings are recommended via the website.

The rooftop of Lumine Shinjuku has transformed into a beer garden where you can watch movies curated by Cinema Caravan, also known as the organisers of the annual Zushi Film Festival. You can choose from three kinds of cuisines – American, Korean or Mexican barbecue courses, all offered in light (from ¥5,390), standard (from ¥5,940) and premium (from ¥6,490) plans. The World Trip BBQ Premium Plan offers a taste of all the cuisines in one course, for ¥7,590.

The all-American course comes with classic beef short ribs, pork, jerk chicken and sausage, accompanied with condiments like buffalo sauce, magic mustard and Kansas City barbecue sauce. The Korean course, on the other hand, features a one-centimetre-thick slab of samgyeopsal (pork belly), beef short rib, scallops, kimchi and four kinds of dips including dadaegi miso and yangnyeom (sweet and spicy) sauce. The Mexican course comes with beef, jerk chicken, pork, as well as seafood options like scallops, salmon and shrimp, and a side of guacamole. All courses come with 90 minutes of all-you-can-drink beverages from a list of 160 cocktails and soft drinks.

Popular German craft beer brand Schmatz takes over the Lumine Ikebukuro rooftop with its annual beer garden serving modern German cuisine. It features four original craft beers, plus a range of beer cocktails including shandy gaff, cassis beer, mango beer and even a banana weizen. Additionally, there are regular cocktails, highballs, shochu and wines to choose from as well. 

The standard barbecue plan (¥6,000) includes sauerkraut, camembert cheese ahijo with baguette, sausages, beef, pork, and an array of veggies to grill. You can order drinks as you go, but we recommend adding an additional ¥500 to get an all-you-can-drink deal on its four speciality beers on tap.

Yokohama’s premier celebration of the arts takes place every three years. Themed ‘Wild Grass: Our Lives’, the 2024 edition will centre on the Yokohama Museum of Art, the Former Daiichi Bank Yokohama Branch, and BankART Kaiko, as well as a wide variety of venues around the city, welcoming an international lineup of 93 artists – 20 of whom will be exhibiting all-new works.

Tickets are available here or via our affiliate partner Klook.

Craft, creativity, heritage and modernity all converge in this immersive visual journey through the 187-year history of American jewellery maestros Tiffany. Within the gallery space of Tokyo Node, situated in the soaring Toranomon Hills Station Tower complex, ten rooms are filled with hundreds of captivating creations that range from one-of-a-kind items to iconic accessories that has become part of popular culture.

One standout amongst many is the very first iteration of Tiffany’s emblematic ‘Bird on a Rock’ brooch. This was conceived by longstanding Tiffany designer Jean Schlumberger, whose work for the brand won over clients including actresses Audrey Hepburn and Greta Garbo. As with many of Schlumberger’s works, this magnificent nature-themed piece reminds us that, for all of their luxury and glamour, diamonds are ultimately something derived from the earth itself.

The exhibition also explores Tiffany’s relationship with Japan, which stretches back to the company’s earliest days. Many designers closely associated with Tiffany, including Elsa Peretti and Edward Chandler Moore, took inspiration from traditional Japanese arts, making ‘Tiffany Wonder’ a spiritual homecoming for some of the featured works.

Tickets are available online.

The exhibition is closed on the following dates: April 17 (5pm-8pm), April 22 (6.30pm-8pm), April 30 (5pm-8pm), May 8 (11.30am-1pm, 5pm-8pm), May 13 (6pm-8pm), May 16 (6pm-8pm).

Step into an enchanted digital forest in this collaborative exhibition between teamLab and Galaxy. Now in its third iteration, the interactive experience is based on the concept of catching different digital creatures to study them before releasing them back into their habitat. As it's a digital art experience, you'll be using an app on the Galaxy smartphone to collect different prehistoric animals in the mystical forest.

Be gentle when approaching these critters! If you try to touch them they might run and disappear into the forest. If you're lucky, they might become curious instead and turn towards you. Nevertheless, the exercise here is to point your phone camera at them, release a Study Arrow in their direction, and capture them onto your screen so that you can learn more about their nature.

You can also work together with other visitors and shepherd the dinosaurs projected on the floor. This allows you to then deploy the Study Net and capture them into your phone. Once you've done studying them, you can release them back into the space.

While the exhibit is free, reservations are required so as to avoid overcrowding the venue. Each session is an hour long, with the exhibition open from 11am until 7pm daily. You can book a timeslot as early as three days in advance via the event website.

Renowned 20th century master Henri Matisse (1869-1954), though best known as a painter, was a true multimedia artist whose creativity also spanned sculpture, printmaking and other forms. This is the very first exhibition in Japan to focus on the French artist’s work with paper cut-outs, the medium he energetically pursued in the last decade-and-a-half of his life.

Works on loan from the Matisse Museum in Nice, France show how the artist began creating expressionistic collages composed of scissor-cut pieces of paper in a multitude of colours.The subjects and themes of these cutout works included the female form, avian life, and a distinctive twodimensional take on the flowersand-fruit still life. While initially modest in size, these cut-outs grew in scale to become murals spanning entire walls: the largest example featured here is some eight metres wide.

Also on show is a selection of works in other media, including painting, ink brush on paper, and stained glass.

This exhibition is closed on Tuesday, except April 30.

Text by Darren Gore

The Tokyo Contemporary Art Award, established in 2018, is a prize intended to encourage mid-career artists to make further breakthroughs in their work by providing winners with several years of continuous support. Here, the two winners of the award’s fourth edition each present shows that, despite their creative diversity, both involve visitors and their actions becoming key elements of the art. Through this, both shows lead audiences to examine their relationships: with fellow humans, animals, and society’s expectations.

Saeborg, born in 1981 and based in Tokyo, creates and performs as a latex bodysuit-clad ‘imperfect cyborg, half human and half toy’ that enables the female behind this guise to transcend such characteristics as age and gender. Here Saeborg presents ‘I Was Made for Loving You’, for which a section of the venue has been transformed into a life-sized toy farm. Visitors will experience a highly immersive installation-performance that transcends the boundaries between the body and synthetic materials, and between human and animal.

Michiko Tsuda (born in 1980 and working in Ishikawa prefecture) presents ‘Life is Delaying’, an installation that uses video to explore the notion of physicality. The work recreates the private world experienced by a family at home through the perspective of someone operating an old-school video camera. The piece was inspired by Tsuda’s childhood memory of a video camera appearing in her family residence. Here, fictitious documentation of a family, the smallest basic unit of society, is expanded upon to examine the positions of individuals within larger groups and systems.

The exhibition is closed on Monday (except April 29 and May 6), April 30 and May 7.

British-born artist Mark Leckey is a product of the UK’s ever-vibrant pop culture, and through diverse mediums he confronts youth, dance music, nostalgia, social class and history from an often countercultural perspective. The subcultural edge of his work – which encompasses film, sound, sculpture, performance, collage and more – additionally takes on a gritty incongruousness when enjoyed at Louis Vuitton’s sleek Omotesando exhibition space.

The French luxury house here presents two Leckey works from its collection. 'Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore feat. Big Red Soundsystem' (1999-2003-2010) is a film that, through a mash-up of archive footage, vividly traces the development of the UK’s underground dance music scene from 1970s disco through to the ’90s rave scene.

2013’s 'Felix the Cat', meanwhile, is a giant inflatable rendering of the cartoon cat that Leckey considers a pioneer of the digital age. Almost a century ago, this feline character was one of the first subjects to be transmitted as a TV signal.

Text by Darren Gore

Opened in 2016 in Munich, the Museum of Urban and Contemporary Art (MUCA) holds one of Europe’s foremost collections of urban-inspired contemporary art, encompassing the likes of Kaws, Banksy and Shepherd Fairey. Now Tokyo, a key city in global street culture, finally gets a taste of the MUCA collection with the arrival of this touring exhibition that has already wowed Kyoto and Oita City.

Over 60 major pieces, including career-defining work by the above-mentioned figures as well as fellow legends including JR, Invader and Barry McGee, are being shown in Japan for the very first time. Highlights include Banksy’s ‘Bullet Hole Bust’, in which the artist’s anti-establishment attitude is rendered in 3D form: the cultural bust form associated with classical art is brutalised by a bullet to the forehead. Kaws’s ‘4ft Companion (Dissected Brown)’, meanwhile, cuts away the left-side ‘skin’ of one his signature ‘Companion’ characters to reveal its inner organs.

Text by Darren Gore

Animal life is not something commonly associated with Tokyo – a city that, arguably more than any other world capital, is built for human convenience. Nonetheless, as this exhibition vividly demonstrates, the relationship between Tokyoites and animals has run deep ever since the city’s establishment as Edo over four centuries ago.

Around 240 exhibits, on loan from the vast collection of the Edo-Tokyo Museum, explore this human-beast connection from the establishment of the Edo Shogunate in 1603 through to more recent times. This show is an expanded ‘homecoming’ edition of ‘Un Bestiare Japonais’, a highly acclaimed event held at Paris’ Maison de la culture du Japon in 2022 and 2023.

Tokyo’s love of cats and dogs, still highly evident today, is seen here in pieces ranging from ukiyo-e woodblock prints from the masters of that genre, to the often cute motifs used in both traditional crafts and more modern toys and ornaments. A print by the legendary Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858; shown in the exhibition’s second half) features a plump domestic cat as it gazes from a window, with Mt Fuji on the distant horizon. Less lovable creatures are referenced too, as in Harunobu Suzuki’s (1724-1770; exhibition’s second half) depiction of a mother and her child hanging up a mosquito net.

Edo and Tokyo history is illuminated through this diverse selection of exhibits. Pre-mass industrialisation, the city relied heavily upon the ‘labour’ of horses, and a section unique to this Tokyo edition features works, including nishiki-e paintings, depicting the horse-drawn carriages that ran on the streets from 1882 until 1903 as a form of public transportation.

Note: Content varies across the exhibition’s first (April 27-May 26) and second (May 28-June 23) terms. The exhibition is closed on Monday (or Tuesday if Monday is a public holiday).