Ameya Yokochō (Ameyoko Arcade)

This unabashed shopping street is one of the few areas in which some of the rough readiness of old Shitamachi still lingers. Step into this alley paralleling the JR Yamanote Line tracks south of JR Ueno Station, and ritzy, glitzy Tokyo may seem like a distant memory. The gravelly irasshai (Welcome) and ikaga desu ka? (How about buying some?) of fishmongers, fruit and vegetable sellers, knock-off-clothing vendors and a healthy smattering of open-air markets couldn’t be further from Ginza or Aoyama. Ameyoko earned its notoriety as a black-market district in the years following WWII, though today it’s primarily a bargain shopping area. Simple shops spill out into the alleys, selling block after block of cheap clothing (for Japan, anyway), produce, dried fruit, dried nori (seaweed), dried mushrooms and dried squid. Some of the same tourist items on sale in Ginza sell here at more reasonable rates. Shopkeepers also stand on less ceremony than those in other shopping areas in Tokyo, brazenly hawking their goods with guttural cries to the passing crowds. In the Ameyoko Center building, Chinese, Korean and Southeast Asian merchants have set up their own shopping arcade where you’ll find exotic cooking spices, fresh seafood, durian fruit and other unusual imported items.