Koenji is the counter-culture west — the neighbourhood that took the punk and the second-hand and the cheap drink that priced out of Shinjuku, and kept them. It is old-Tokyo cool, and unlike a lot of cool it's genuinely warm.
Out of the south exit and into the arcades. The Pal shotengai is covered, which makes it the wet-day spine; it runs straight into the open-air Look, and between them you have a kilometre of vintage racks, record bins and family shops. Cross north for Junjo Shotengai — 'pure love', named for a novelist — where the Koenji on show is more local than thrift-tourist. The lanes around the station hide the izakaya, tiny pub-eateries seating eight at a squeeze; mark the ones with hand-written menus for the evening.
This is Awa Odori country too — every August the streets fill with the great summer dance, tens of thousands moving in lines. End south at Koenji Hikawa-jinja, a quiet shrine with a corner devoted to the weather, then the Marunouchi line from Shin-Koenji.
