Yotsuya as a resident

The first thing to know about Yotsuya is that it does not behave like the rest of Shinjuku. Five minutes west on the Marunouchi line and you are inside the Kabukicho-shaped Shinjuku that travel guides describe. In Yotsuya you walk back from the station at ten and pass a man watering plants. The blocks are residential. The izakaya are small. The loudest thing on most nights is the train.

I lived three blocks north of Yotsuya station, in the Yotsuyasakamachi (四谷坂町) area, the stretch between Yotsuya and Akebonobashi (曙橋) on the Toei Shinjuku line. The address is on the Shinjuku-ku side of the rail tracks, away from the office spillover. The first week you walk to the JR. By the second week you've worked out that Akebonobashi is four minutes flat and that Yotsuya-sanchome (四谷三丁目) is the right station for groceries.

Five stations, no more than thirteen minutes

Yotsuya is one of the better-connected residential pockets in central Tokyo. Five lines reach within walking distance of the building.

• Yotsuya station (四ツ谷駅). JR Chuo (Rapid), JR Chuo-Sobu (Local), Tokyo Metro Marunouchi, Tokyo Metro Namboku. About 10 to 13 minutes on foot, depending on which exit you use.
• Yotsuya-sanchome station (四谷三丁目駅). Tokyo Metro Marunouchi only. About 8 to 10 minutes.
• Akebonobashi station (曙橋駅). Toei Shinjuku line. About 4 to 5 minutes. This is your closest station and the one you'll use most for north-south trips and for the late train home.

Last trains run later than you'd guess. The Marunouchi line at Yotsuya pushes its last toward Ogikubo around 12:12 in the morning. The Chuo-Sobu local runs a little later. The Toei Shinjuku line out of Akebonobashi runs to about 12:20 toward Motoyawata. The honest rule of thumb is midnight, give or take twenty minutes by line. After that it's a taxi from any of the three.

Tokyo station is 10 minutes on the Marunouchi line. Shibuya is 14 by JR via Yoyogi. Shinjuku is 4 minutes east on the Marunouchi from Yotsuya-sanchome, or three by JR from Yotsuya. The neighborhood works whether your office is in Otemachi or in Roppongi.

The combini you'll use after midnight

Three convenience stores cover the daily run from the building. They sit at the corners that make sense, and one of them is the one you'll go to at 1am.

The Lawson on the corner heading toward Akebonobashi station stays open all night and is the closest 24-hour stop from Yotsuyasakamachi. It's about three minutes on foot. This is the late-night combini. Onigiri restocks late evening, the bento shelf marks down around 9:30, and the ATM works for foreign cards if you don't have a Japan-issued one yet.

The FamilyMart near Akebonobashi station itself is 4 minutes and has a slightly better fried-food counter. The 7-Eleven cluster sits closer to Yotsuya-sanchome on the way to the supermarket, 8 minutes from the building. You pass it on the supermarket run anyway, so it ends up being the morning-coffee combini if you're heading that direction.

If you only remember one, remember the Lawson on the Akebonobashi corner. That's the one that's open when you need it to be.

Where to actually buy groceries

You have two reasonable supermarkets and one expensive imported-foods place, depending on what you're cooking.

Marusho (マルショウ) is the daily-shopping pick. Two floors, full produce and seafood downstairs, meat and dry goods upstairs. About 10 minutes on foot from the building, one minute from Yotsuya-sanchome station. Prices are normal Tokyo supermarket. The two-floor layout means you'll think you're done and then realize you haven't been to the second floor. The vegetable selection is good. They stock konbu and dashi in proper sizes, not the tourist-sized boxes.

Seijo Ishii (成城石井) sits inside the Atre building at Yotsuya station. About 11 minutes from the building. This is the imported-foods, wine, and prepared-deli option. Olive oil, real parmesan, decent bread, smoked salmon, miso pastes you won't find at Marusho. Expect to pay 30 to 50 percent more for the things you can also get at Marusho. For the things you can't, it's the right shop. Open until 10pm.

For the cheaper everyday run, Marusho. For the things you actually miss from home, Seijo Ishii. Most weeks I went to Marusho twice and Seijo Ishii once.

Pharmacy, clinic, hospital

A drugstore for daily needs, an English-friendly clinic for the cold that lingers, and a hospital for anything serious.

Pharmacy: Sun Drug Yotsuya-sanchome is directly in front of Yotsuya-sanchome station, about 9 minutes from the building. Open late, normal Japanese drugstore stock: cold medicine, painkillers, contact-lens solution, toothpaste, light cosmetics. Dakoku Drug is two minutes further on. Both take cash and major credit cards.

Clinic for English speakers: Clinic For Yotsuya, on the second floor of the CO·MO·RE Mall right at Yotsuya station, takes English-speaking patients for general medicine. About 11 minutes on foot. Open 10am to 7pm with a lunch break. They handle the standard run of things: cold, flu, mild infections, simple referrals. Walk-in is possible but call ahead in the morning if you want a same-day slot.

Hospital: The Center Hospital of the National Center for Global Health and Medicine in Shinjuku is the right place for anything serious. It has staff who work in English, Chinese, Korean, French, and a handful of other languages. About 15 minutes by taxi or one stop on the Marunouchi line plus a short walk. Note the address before you need it. If you're calling an ambulance, the number is 119; if you're walking in, say the hospital name (Kokuritsu Kokusai Iryo Kenkyu Center, 国立国際医療研究センター) to the taxi driver.

The koban

The closest koban (交番 — small neighborhood police box) is at Yotsuya-sanchome station, about 9 minutes from the building. There's another at Yotsuya station, slightly further. They're staffed all day. You go there for three reasons:

• Lost something on the train or in a restaurant. They check the lost-and-found network and call you when something matches.
• Got lost and the maps app isn't helping. The officer will walk you out and point.
• Need to file a report on something small (lost wallet, lost phone, lost bicycle).

The officers at Yotsuya-sanchome speak limited English but they handle foreign residents constantly because of Sophia University. They are patient. Don't worry about the language.

Three meals, three price points

The eating around Yotsuya is good and runs from genuinely cheap to genuinely expensive. The variety is the texture, not any single restaurant.

Cheap, daily: Taiyaki Wakaba (たいやき わかば)

Two minutes from the building, on the corner of Wakaba 1-chome. Wakaba has been making one thing since 1953: fish-shaped pancakes filled with red bean paste, the shells crisp and slightly burnt on the edges. ¥210 per piece. Cash only. Open 9:30am to 6:30pm, closed Sunday. There's almost always a small line on weekends and around 4pm on weekdays.

You walk past it on the way to the JR. Get one for ¥210 and eat it while you walk. This is the cheapest specific thing I can recommend in Yotsuya, and it's been on every neighborhood-food list of Tokyo for forty years for good reason.

Mid-range: Tonkatsu Suzushin (とんかつ 鈴新)

About 12 minutes on foot, four minutes from Yotsuya-sanchome. A pork cutlet shop that opened in the Showa era and has been running the same kitchen ever since. The signature dish is Kakekatsudon, a pork cutlet with a soy-dashi sauce, ladled over rice. Around ¥1,400 for the set with miso soup and pickles. Go for lunch within the first hour they open. The cutlets are freshest then and the rice is still steaming.

Date night: Kaiseki Oui (懐石 おうい)

Two minutes from Yotsuya station, about 13 minutes from the building. A small kaiseki counter that serves seven to eight seasonal courses for around ¥7,450 a person. The chef does the ordering for you. Reservation required, usually a week ahead on weekends. Wine and sake list is curated and you trust it. This is the place to take someone you want to take somewhere.

Hidden izakaya: Sakaba Nonki (酒場 のんき) in Arakicho

Five minutes from Yotsuya-sanchome, deeper into the Arakicho (荒木町) back streets. A small counter izakaya in an old alley that the locals know and tourists don't. The oyster and beef-tendon tofu are the signature dishes. Three small plates and two drinks runs about ¥3,500. They speak some English; the menu has photos for the rest.

Arakicho is the small backstreet district between Yotsuya and Yotsuya-sanchome and is where a lot of the better food in this area lives. Walk it once at 7pm with no destination. You will find your own place on the second pass.

Sotobori Park, the running path

If you run, this is the reason to stay in Yotsuya. Sotobori Park (外濠公園) runs along the old Edo castle outer moat from Yotsuya station to Iidabashi, about 2 kilometers each way. Trees on one side, the moat and the JR tracks on the other. The path is gravel and dirt, mostly flat, and runs past Ichigaya station roughly halfway through.

A loop of the park is 4 kilometers. If you want more, continue west from Iidabashi to the Imperial Palace and add the 5-kilometer Imperial Palace loop. That's the standard Tokyo runner's route and it starts ten minutes from your front door.

Cherry blossom season turns the path into a tunnel of pink for about ten days in late March. Early-morning runs in that window are crowded but quiet. Most other weeks the park belongs to local runners, dog walkers, and Sophia University students cutting through to the campus.

The university crowd, and what it means

Sophia University (上智大学, Jouchi Daigaku) sits across from Yotsuya station's south exit. About 13,000 students. The campus pushes the morning rhythm of the ward. Busy on Hongo-dori and the few blocks south of the station between 8:30 and 9:30, quiet by 10. The same thing repeats around 6pm when classes let out.

Sophia is one of the more international universities in Japan. About 1,500 foreign students cycle through each year. The practical effect for residents is that the cafes, the cheaper lunch spots, and the convenience stores near the station are used to English-speaking customers. The shopkeepers around Yotsuya station expect a certain volume of foreigners and they're patient about it.

The other practical effect is that 6pm on weekdays around Yotsuya station is busier than you'd expect from a residential neighborhood. Twenty-year-olds with backpacks crossing the streets in waves. By 8pm they've gone home or to a study room and the neighborhood settles back into its quiet shape.

The mix is part of the texture. Office workers walking home from Yotsuya station at 7pm, students cutting through Sotobori park at 4pm, older residents at the supermarket at 11am. Three populations using the same streets at different hours.

What the listing didn't tell you

The blocks north of the JR tracks (Yotsuyasakamachi, Wakaba, the small streets running toward Akebonobashi) are quieter than the Yotsuya station listings suggest. The station is loud. The blocks three minutes back from it are not. By 10pm the residential side streets are the kind of quiet where you hear your own footsteps and the hum of a vending machine.

The walks home from the station at 11pm are well-lit. There are streetlights every 15 meters or so on the major routes and slightly less on the residential cuts. The combini stays in your line of sight for most of the walk. You won't be the only person walking. There will be three or four others, a dog, a delivery cyclist.

The slope into Akebonobashi is real. The Yotsuyasakamachi name says it. "Sakamachi" means "slope town." It's a gentle grade, not a Bunkyo hill, but you notice it carrying groceries from Marusho on the way back up. The longer flat route from Yotsuya-sanchome cuts the slope in half. By the third week you'll do that one with the heavy bag and take the short slope when you're empty-handed.

Where to actually walk in the first week

If you have a free morning, walk Sotobori Park from Yotsuya station to Iidabashi and back. About 50 minutes at a relaxed pace. You'll learn the south edge of the neighborhood, the JR line's rhythm, and where Ichigaya and Iidabashi sit on the map. Take the second cup of coffee at the small cafe on the south side of the path near Ichigaya station.

If you have an evening, walk Arakicho from Yotsuya-sanchome southwest into the backstreets. The third or fourth alley you turn down will have an izakaya you wouldn't have found from a map. Order one drink and one plate. If the place feels right, come back next week.

If you have a Sunday morning, walk north from the building toward Wakaba East Park, past Suga Shrine, then west into the Yotsuya-sanchome shopping street. You'll learn the route to the supermarket without thinking about it. By the third week you won't open the maps app for it.

The shape of a month

Yotsuya is the part of Shinjuku where the train noise stops and the residential blocks start. You learn this by walking back from the station the first few times. The first night you take the marked route. The second week you cut through Wakaba and save three minutes. By the third week you know the slope toward Akebonobashi, you know which side of the JR tracks has the wider sidewalk, and the cashier at the Lawson nods when you walk in.

Sophia is across the street. The park is 90 seconds away. Marusho is ten minutes east. The cheapest taiyaki in central Tokyo is on your way back from the station. A month here is enough to stop using the maps app, and once you've stopped, you know the ward.