Kichijoji: the park and the postwar alleys
Swan boats on Inokashira pond, the Ghibli Museum, and a warren of tiny bars by the station. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. Harmonica Yokocho
Start right by the station in the *yokocho* — a postwar warren of tiny stalls and bars so tightly packed it was named for harmonica reeds. Daytime it's grocers and standing snack counters; evening it's the best drinking in west Tokyo. Either works.

2. Sun Road arcade
The covered shopping street running north — a *shotengai* (covered shopping street) of the proper local kind, not a tourist one. Useful as your wet-weather spine, and the side streets off it are where Kichijoji's small shops actually live.

3. Inokashira Park
South of the station, the park that west Tokyo treats as its garden, built around a long pond. Cherry blossom in spring turns the water pink; the rest of the year it's the rowing and swan boats and a slow loop of the shore. Walk the full ring.

4. Benzaiten shrine
On a spit into the pond, a vermilion shrine to the goddess of water and music. Local lore says couples who row a boat here break up — she's said to be jealous — which everyone repeats and nobody quite believes. Go anyway.

5. Ghibli Museum
At the park's south-west edge, Hayao Miyazaki's museum in a building that looks drawn rather than built. Tickets are date-and-time, bought well ahead — you can't just turn up. Even from outside the garden and the rooftop robot are worth the detour.

6. The side streets back
Loop north through the residential lanes east of the park — the small galleries, the second-hand shops, the *kissaten* (old coffee houses) that Kichijoji does well. The grid funnels you back to the station to close the loop.

Kichijoji: the park and the postwar alleys