"There's a reason I don't accept credit cards," began Mr Yoshida. "Most shops like mine don't open early in the morning. I get a lot of tourists asking for lattes to go, but that's not what I do. Young people may enjoy it now, but we don't have a tradition of walking and drinking coffee in the morning in Japan."
Mr Yoshida goes on to explain that, in a shop like his, coffee is always hand-poured. It's meant to be enjoyed seated from a porcelain cup of just the right proportions—not a disposable takeaway vessel. That's why he named his place CALM. This original 1960s kissaten (喫茶店) sits on the eastern edge of the Akasaka district. The atmosphere, a designated no-laptop zone, is indeed peaceful.
"I don't mind foreigners who want to sit down, but being cash-only gets rid of the latte-to-go crowd, even if it sometimes annoys them. I don't speak much English, so it's hard to explain otherwise" he continues.
Finding an independent kissaten open at 9 AM is indeed uncommon. The others I know of in the Akasaka area don't open until around 11 AM or even noon. In such cases, I might rely on chain establishments like Renoir (ルノアール), known for their earlier opening hours. And occasionally, there is the guilty pleasure of a 7-Eleven coffee paired with a selection of pre-packaged, processed bread—the quintessential konbini breakfast.
I arrived at CALM precisely at 9, just as Mr Yoshida was opening. He had already given me his usual no-credit-cards rebuttal. But over his shoulder, I noticed a row of authentic Thonet bentwood chairs and coffee syphons lined neatly along a blue-tiled bar. The syphons practically called to be fired up, so I persisted, assuring him that cash payment wouldn't be a problem. At an old kissaten, a ¥1000 note usually covers a hand-brewed coffee and a light breakfast, with change to spare.
My morning started roughly five hours earlier. I'd woken suddenly at 4 AM in my compact room at the Hotel Mystays Premier Akasaka. It was still dark outside. I don't surface before 5 AM, even on an unusually early morning. Yet returning to sleep felt futile—I was energised, as one might feel after a late-afternoon nap.
I was enduring a bout of desynchronosis—a disruption in the body's natural rhythms brought on by long-haul travel. These rhythms, collectively called circadian rhythms, serve as the body's internal clock. A finely tuned system in the brain manages the daily cycle of physiological functions, from sleep and hormone production to core body temperature. The circadian rhythm runs on a 24-hour cycle, regulated primarily by light cues that signal when to be alert and wind down. Crossing multiple time zones rapidly leaves this internal clock aligned with your departure point, out of sync with the local time at your destination. Fatigue, disturbed sleep, digestive issues, mood changes, and reduced mental clarity—we know it more simply as 'jet lag'.
Travelling eastward "loses" hours, often intensifying jet lag symptoms more than westward travel. Departing London Heathrow at 9:40 AM, I arrived at Tokyo's Haneda Airport at 7:15 AM the next day—effectively fast-forwarding my schedule by eight time zones. Subsequently, my body still registered it as 11 PM UK time. The bright daylight and the reality of being in Japan energised me through the afternoon, but fatigue set in by early evening. I drifted to sleep at 8 PM—equivalent to noon in the UK—a discombobulating hour to fall asleep in either time zone. Unsurprisingly, my body woke me abruptly at 4 AM JST.
I considered writing or catching up on emails, but the boxy hotel room left me restless. The only real option was to put my shoes back on and head out to walk the early morning streets of Akasaka. After some pottering around, I noticed the clock nearing 5 AM as I ventured out. The streetlights were still aglow, though their illumination was faint, and the sun had only just begun filtering through the taller buildings enclosing the narrow streets in this part of Akasaka.
Just down the hill from the hotel, the nightlife along Misuji-dōri was winding down. I saw a few well-dressed women exiting zakkyo¹ buildings and a late-night worker from a Korean restaurant putting out the rubbish. Tokyo's night trade serves customers who work late or prefer after-hours socialising. By 4:30 or 5 AM, many businesses are closing up. As staff finish their shifts, they head home just in time for the first morning trains, which begin running shortly after 5 AM.
I walked back around the block, passing Akasaka Station and then a deserted Hikawa Park. After briefly climbing Korobizaka slope and cutting down a side alley, I found myself near the Katsu Kaishū and Sakamoto Ryōma statue. This monument honours two key historical figures from Japan's late Edo Period (1603–1868), both instrumental in the nation's shift from feudal rule to the modern Meiji Era (1869–1912). An older woman was sweeping autumn leaves around the statue.
A former neighbour of mine came to mind. When I used to leave home at 6:00 AM each day, two houses down and across the way, my neighbour would always be outside, sweeping in front of her home with a bamboo broom before sprinkling water on the pavement. I estimated she was in her 90s, yet she swept with a vigour that defied her age.
Sweeping is a simple act that clears dirt or fallen leaves before visitors arrive. It also serves as a mark of respect for the shared public space beyond one's door, creating a welcoming impression for neighbours and passersby. After sweeping, there follows the sprinkling of water, or uchimizu (打ち水). Initially, this practice was used to settle dust during the summer. Uchimizu has a cooling effect, especially on hot days, as the water's evaporation absorbs heat. It also has a psychological aspect, invoking a sense of freshness that readies the person performing it and those around them for a new day.
After seeing me several times, my neighbour began to wish me good morning. Eventually, I took to initiating the greeting myself. In Tokyo, where community life can be more reserved than other parts of Japan, such interactions are approached gingerly. There is no backing out once you join this kind of neighbourhood exchange. Though I never saw it happen, I'm sure my neighbour began sweeping my porch too—a gesture of affection, perhaps, but also a subtle suggestion that I ought to have done it a bit more often myself.
In Perfect Days, a drama directed by Wim Wenders centring on the daily rituals of Hirayama, a public toilet cleaner, Hirayama begins each morning waking to the sound of sweeping. By coincidence, sweeping on Tokyo's streets came up in a conversation this week, and I was shown a video of Wenders at the Cannes 2023 press conference, where he discusses the sweeping motif.
According to the script, Hirayama would wake at 5 AM without an alarm. The crew was set to film the first scene early one morning when a strange brushing sound came from the street. Outside the window, they saw an older woman sweeping in front of the temple. With no other time to shoot, this unscripted moment in the neighbourhood meant they had to adjust. The sweeping became Hirayama's alarm clock—like my dependable neighbour, she was there morning after morning.
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I wandered southwest, descending a steep back lane with steps that led me onto Hikawazaka, which then rose again to the southeast. The zaka in this name is a variant of saka (坂), meaning slope. Indeed, the place name 赤坂 (Akasaka) combines 赤 (Aka), meaning "red," and 坂 (Saka), translating to "Red Slope" or, more poetically, "Red Hills." Akasaka is known for its slopes and inclines, some less walkable than others.
Beneath its dense urban layers, Tokyo retains a relationship with its natural topography, and Akasaka provides a palpable sense of this spatial continuity. Here, the urban landscape conforms to the undulating terrain, maintaining an interaction between built and natural forms that reveals the city's geomorphological origins.
The side entrance to Hikawa Shrine lies along Hikawazaka, leading to its beautifully maintained grounds. Once the personal shrine of Shōgun Tokugawa Yoshimune, it provides a glimpse into how an Edo Period ruler appointed a shrine. Its somewhat inconvenient location, in the hilly terrain between Akasaka and Roppongi Stations, keeps it relatively quiet all day.
Before reaching the shrine's main hall, a spacious clearing opens up, offering ample seating and sunlight streaming through the trees. Few places in Minato Ward hold such an abundance of greenery. The light quality shifts daily; perhaps three or four days each year, it becomes breathtaking. This was one of those rare mornings with the warm orange dawn light just beginning to reflect off nearby buildings and spill through the branches overhead.
From 6:30 AM, Radio Taiso (ラジオ体操) takes place in the shrine precincts. As participants began arriving, I decided to buy a hot hōjicha from the nearest vending machine and take a moment to watch this morning wellness practice unfold. Radio Taiso is a group exercise routine introduced in the 1920s through public radio. It features simple, rhythmic callisthenics performed to lively piano music. Despite its simplicity, the routine provides a balanced mix of stretching, strength, and aerobic movements designed to engage the entire body. Its value lies as much in its social and communal aspects as in its physical benefits.
Regardless of age or fitness, anyone can join Radio Taiso, though the participants I saw warming up at Hikawa Shrine were well past retirement age. Alongside the morning rituals of sweeping and uchimizu, it's another area where Japan's older generations possess the secrets of a good life that much of the world yearns for. It's no stretch to associate Radio Taiso with an extended lifespan or even with Japan's high proportion of centenarians; if you want to learn about longevity, skip YouTube and talk with a Japanese grandmother.
One day, I'll join Radio Taiso. For the moment, after watching for a little while, I decided to walk around the shrine's perimeter, where the backstreets exude a refined tension, created by stately stone walls and a quiet broken only by the occasional cleaning vehicle. Turning toward Roppongi, I passed a few early-rising professionals in suits. While there's truth in Mr Yoshida's view on coffee and walking, these workers with hot cans from vending machines represent a different mode from either the mindful kissaten or the latte-to-go crowd—a bracing hit of caffeine and sugar before whatever politics and project complexities have them in the office at 7 AM.
As I stroll down Hinokizaka, meaning "Cypress Slope," I pass several residential buildings where parents walk with their children, each carrying a firm leather Randoseru (ランドセル) rucksack—a suitably high-quality school bag for this upscale neighbourhood. The school day for elementary, junior high, and high school students typically starts around 8:30 AM. Yet many arrive for club activities, cleaning duties, or morning meetings as early as 7:30 AM.
Unaccompanied children are also on their way. It's quite common for young children to walk to and from school independently. Communities support this practice with pedestrian-friendly streets, safe crossings, and a robust neighbourhood watch system. The television show Hajimete no Otsukai (はじめてのおつかい), translated as Old Enough!, follows young children as they complete simple errands on their own. Two seasons are available on Netflix, where the show gained immense popularity, symbolising "safe Japan" for viewers worldwide. Its enviable—and, for many, frankly unbelievable—scenes project an image that continues to fuel inbound tourism.
A winding walk led me up and down the sakas, eventually bringing me almost unintentionally to the Roppongi-dōri thoroughfare, where morning traffic was building up. After following the main road, I arrived across from Ark Hills, the first and oldest of the Mori Building Company's "Hills" developments that now dot the city. An underpass—the sort you'd never risk in London—conveniently runs beneath the main road, taking you directly to the doorstep of Ark Hills. I can never resist wandering through this complex, with its late Modernist architecture, linear façade, and lingering sense of faded dreams. The ANA Intercontinental Hotel is part of the complex, and I saw a few tourists setting out sensibly early for their day's sightseeing.
A long-trusted method for dedicated tourists to avoid crowds is to start as early as possible in the morning. Previously the domain of enthusiastic early risers, this practice has gained traction through social media clips. Travel influencers share their blissful, nearly exclusive experiences at typically crowded spots. Naturally, posting these clips reduces the benefit of dawn visits as more people catch on and do the same.
Early morning sightseeing is particularly well-suited to jet lag—an ideal way to make use of an otherwise foggy, unproductive state of mind. I've rarely taken advantage of jet lag this way, except once in Kyoto, when I set out for Arashiyama, best known for its bamboo forest, around 7:00 AM. Arashiyama is an extreme case, as one of the busiest attractions in one of Japan's most heavily visited cities. Even after an hour of strolling, the crowds were already thickening. I had a morning booking at a tea pavilion, and when I emerged around 9:00, the crowds were nearly in full force. By 10 AM, as I departed, the entire weight of Kyoto's tourist population seemed to be entering the area, utterly transforming the streets. TikTok may be slightly breaking the quiet of early morning sightseeing, but most still seem to favour a slow start and leisurely breakfast, accepting the trade-off of queuing and crowding.
Breakfast began to play on my mind. Just opposite Ark Hills, under Roppongi-dōri, a narrow sloping street leads almost directly back to MyStays. It has the atmosphere of a shōtengai shopping street, with flags flying to promote the local merchants' association. Yet something in the blend of dwindling old businesses and newer, taller buildings in varied styles—set against Roppongi-dōri and the looming shadow of Ark Hills—detracts from the classic energy of a shōtengai.
CALM sits along this shopping street, where I found myself at the counter with a coffee and pizza toast, listening to Mr Yoshida as taxis began to trundle by in increasing numbers outside. Toward the end of a long conversation—which had stretched my brief stop to over an hour—he took out a collection of local history books. Inside, he showed me photographs of how the shōtengai once looked before layers of development reshaped the area. It was a serene shopping street then, lined entirely with old wooden-framed buildings, of which only one or two remain. I imagined early-rising proprietors, surely with spotlessly swept and washed entryways.
Stepping out of CALM, I realised the time and wondered how I'd stave off desynchronosis for the rest of the day. My stroll had transformed into a five-hour, slightly dreamlike exploration. Such is the draw of Tokyo's inner enclaves, each carrying a different mood depending on the time of day.
Until we meet beneath the Tokyo morning sun,
AJ
This Week’s Music
The reel for this week’s newsletter featured Shoe Shine by Saho Terao. As I listened to the song’s introduction, its upbeat, jazzy sound felt suitable for the theme of early mornings and coffee at a kissaten. But when the lyrics began, I suddenly felt choked up. The song’s opening lines hit me with unexpected weight:
死んだ仲間もいるよ
Shinda nakama mo iru yo
Some of my friends are dead
しゅーしゃいん
Shūshain
Shoe shine
ガード下で飢えて
Gādo shita de uete
Starving under the overpass
アメリカは上客さ
Amerika wa jōkyaku sa
America is the top customer
しゅーしゃいん
Shūshain
Shoe shine
日銭稼ぎ食いつなぎ
Hizen kasegi kuitsunagi
Earning a day’s pay to scrape by
僕も死ねばよかったろうか
Boku mo shineba yokatta rou ka
Would it have been better if I have died too?
爆弾でみんな死んだ日に
Bakudan de minna shinda hi ni
On the day the bombs killed everyone
It is a first-person account of a boy who has lost family and friends during a WWII bombing, possibly a nuclear attack. As the US occupation begins, he picks himself up and does what he can—shining the shoes of Japan’s new occupiers. Amid thoughts that perhaps it would have been better if he had perished as well, he persists in polishing shoes.
Initially, I thought it might be too much for a reel of Tokyo's peaceful streets, but as I wrote this week, I realised it reflects an experience that may not be unfamiliar to people like my old neighbour. It highlights the resilience and fortitude that underpin routines as seemingly innocuous as sweeping and Radio Taiso.
Terao is an elusive artist who defies genre classification—I encourage you to check out this track and her other works on her Bandcamp or your streaming platform of choice.