TOKYO DRIFT

The hospitality industry in the Japanese metropolis gets creative for the 2020 Olympics with three new and authentic encounters

- LUO JINGMEI

KAGURAZAKA

Once a geisha entertainment district, this neighbourhood presents a contrasting tranquility to Shinjuku’s cacophony and Ginza’s high-end glamour

Thanks to the buzz created by Trunk(House), Kagurazaka is gaining a new crowd of visitors. Conceived by style maven Yoshitaka Nojiri, who reignited Shibuya’s cool with the Trunk Hotel in 2017, this hotel offers a refreshing new experience that happily disrupts Tokyo’s hospitality scene.

Charming shrines, cultural salons and more than 150 traditional Japanese restaurants interweave modern European eateries in the matrix of narrow alleyways. Trunk(House) sits in one of these avenues, within a 70-year-old former geisha house whose original architecture has been painstakingly conserved. An alabaster noren curtain —traditional Japanese fabric divider—heralds a holistic, intimate encounter marked with a fusion of traditional and modern elements representing Tokyo’s hybrid character and Kagurazaka’s charm. Guests can dine on meals prepared by an in-house chef, relax in a tranquil Japanese garden, gyrate in a mini neon-lit disco that’s dubbed the world’s smallest, or soak in a cypress bathtub presided over by a wall painting by contemporary woodblock print artist Masumi Ishikawa that collages old and new Kagurazaka sceneries.

While the first storey is cosy, the second is airy and flushed with natural light. Under a lofty ceiling, one can enjoy a tea ceremony on tatami mats around a