With unrivaled views of Ginza and a showstopping spa, the latest outpost from Edition Hotels is an urban paradise.
in early November, I began to notice images of the city appearing on my Instagram feed with a curious regularity: the glittering lights of Shibuya Crossing, rare art tomes from the rambling second-hand bookstores of Jinbōchō, charred yakitori skewers grilling at a hole-in-the-wall Shinjuku. Most of those posting, I realized, were serious Japanophiles, and it turned out the reason for this swell of posts was simple.
All the same, seasoned travelers were returning to a changed city. Sure, there were the subtler details you might notice—the cultural norm of wearing masks in public is now all but ubiquitous, and what was once a cash-preferred city is now fully embracing contactless payments, even in mom-and-pop stores—but there have been more sweeping shifts too, not least in the number of Tokyo institutions, from restaurants to ryokans, that were forced to close as a result of the pandemic.