Somebody decided Kiyosumi-Shirakawa was the Brooklyn of Tokyo, and for once the lazy comparison half-works: an old warehouse district by the canals, gone over to coffee roasters and galleries without losing the shrines and the shitamachi — the low city — underneath. Three and a half kilometres, downhill in spirit, from a garden of carried stones to the birthplace of sumo.
Start at the teien. Kiyosumi Teien is the strolling garden the Mitsubishi founder built in the 1880s, and the thing to do is walk the isowatari — the stepping stones set just above the pond — at the deliberate pace they force on you. Then out into the back streets for coffee. Blue Bottle's first Japan shop opened here in 2015 and the rest followed; the area is now thick with roasters, and you can pick any of them.
South from there the register changes. Fukagawa Fudo-do is all drums and fire — catch a goma ritual if you can — and a few minutes on, Tomioka Hachimangu is where professional sumo started in 1684. End in Monzen-nakacho, the temple-gate town, where the bars open early and either line home is at your feet.
