Tsukiji: the market and the tidal garden
Street food and knife shops, then a saltwater pond and a three-hundred-year pine. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. Tsukiji Outer Market
Start in the lanes of the *jogai* outer market, which kept trading after the wholesale auctions moved to Toyosu in 2018. Tamagoyaki on a stick, grilled scallops, tuna over rice — eat as you walk. Come before nine; by lunch the lanes are shoulder to shoulder and the best stalls have sold out.

2. The knife shops
Among the food stalls, the cutlery merchants — Aritsugu the best known, sharpening blades on the spot. You don't have to buy a four-hundred-pound carbon-steel knife. But watch one being ground, and you'll understand why the chefs come.

3. Namiyoke Jinja
The small shrine at the market's edge — *namiyoke* means warding off waves, and it has protected this reclaimed ground since the 1600s. A *jinja* is a Shinto shrine; bow once at the gate, and notice the giant lion-head floats kept for the summer festival.

4. Sumida riverside
Out to the river path along the Sumida, the working water that made this district. Follow the promenade south past the boats; the walk shifts here from food and crowds to wind and open sky in the space of a block.

5. Hama-rikyu: the tidal pond
Into *Hama-rikyu*, the old shogunal garden on the bay — its central pond, *Shioiri*, still fed by the sea, rising and falling with the tide, the only one of its kind left in Tokyo. The skyline of Shiodome stands over the trees; the contrast is the whole reason to come.

6. The teahouse on the water
Cross the wooden bridge to *Nakajima no Ochaya*, the teahouse standing out over the pond. Order matcha and a sweet, sit on the tatami, and look back at the towers across the water. The three-hundred-year black pine near the entrance is worth circling on the way out.

Tsukiji: the market and the tidal garden