Tsukishima is reclaimed land that the towers never quite finished taking. One lane is given over to monjayaki — the runny griddle-batter the shitamachi cooks on a hot plate in front of you — and a few streets north, on Tsukuda island, an Edo fishing quarter holds on under the high-rises. Under three kilometres, best in the evening, hungry.
Start with the food. Tsukishima Nishinaka-dori is scores of monja restaurants down a single street; you cook it yourself, badly the first time, and that's fine. Then walk north into something much older. The fishermen who settled Tsukudajima came from Osaka in the early 1600s, brought tsukudani — the soy-simmered preserve — with them, and left behind a jinja from 1646 and a few lanes of nagaya that the developers somehow missed.
The wonder is small and red: Tsukuda Kobashi, the bridge over the old boat moorage, with the moored boats below and the River City towers stacked behind. Stand on it a minute. Then take the Sumida-gawa terrace south along the water to Kachidoki and the Oedo line — or back for one more monja.
