3 Best Sights in Nakameguro and Daikanyama, Tokyo

A bookstore and then some, T-Site was designed to be a “library in the woods” for major bookseller Tsutaya but has ended up being a fashionable meeting place for the Daikanyama area. The three wings of the complex house a Tsutaya store full of arty, intellectual tomes, but there are also cafés and restaurants here, including the plush Anjin Library and Lounge, where you can ease into a comfy chair with a coffee or cocktail while surrounded by 30,000 vintage magazines from the 1960s and ‘70s. Don’t miss taking a look at T-Site’s dog salon too: it’s where some of Daikanyama’s most pampered pooches come for styling.

Designed by famed architect Fumihiko Maki, the Hillside Terrace helped shape Daikanyama as a chic neighborhood after it was opened in 1967 and as it was subsequently expanded over the next three decades. Spread over multiple low-rise buildings, it mixes cafés and restaurants with offices, design and fashion stores, and small galleries. It's been overtaken in the public consciousness by T-Site in recent years, but the contemporary art at Art Front Gallery, coffee at Hillside Cafe, and all its other outlets still make it worth a browse.

Part of a private research facility specializing in the study of parasites, this small but free museum is definitely not for the squeamish. Some of the specimens preserved in glass jars look like props from Alien. However, if you’ve ever dreamed of owning a T-shirt with the image of a giant tapeworm on the front, the museum shop has you covered. To get here, you will need to go well off the beaten path: it’s a 20-minute walk south of Naka-Meguro Station, or more conveniently 10 minutes west of Meguro Station.