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Visitors on the shopping street in Asakusa district near Sensoji Temple, Tokyo. Photograph: Philip Fong/AFP/Getty Images

At the height of the Covid pandemic, the restaurateurs and shopkeepers of Tsukiji market in Tokyo must have dreamed of days like these.

Columns of smartphone-wielding visitors shuffle along the narrow streets, pausing to inspect hand-forged kitchen knives and tsukemono pickles, and to sip gratis samples of green tea. Restaurants tempt the lunchtime crowd with sticks of grilled wagyu, boiled crab legs and, for dessert, plump strawberries encased in chewy mochi rice.