Sightseeing in Tokyo in May 2010

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Shitamachi Folk Museum
We continued walking along the Shinobazu no ike and reached the Shitamachi Folk Museum. After paying for the admission, i.e. 300 yen, we met up with an English speaking guide. She showed us a relatively big grocery shop with doll of the owner, his wife and the customer, the well, laundry, and ditches which the downtown people would have shared use of, confectionery shop and the room which the owner would have rented out, while running the shop.

She explained to us that all of the furniture, utensils, and porcelain, and items on the shops were used by the people but have been preserved and displayed with the restored houses and street. The Downtown museum's exhibits also included the portable shrine which the people would have used locally as a place of worship and a meeting place. There were some nostalgic items, e.g. hexagonal telephone box, which was introduced in 1910 and was widely used in Japan, rickshaw, which acted as a main form of transport at the end of the 19th century, and Hakoguruma (box wheel), which was used for delivering clothes.

We went upstairs, and played wooden toys and games, all of which I remembered playing when I was a child. We looked round and read the exhibitions and a series of articles and collection of documents, e.g. postcards, train tickets of the opening the Ginza Metro Line and memorial services, maps, brochures, pamphlets of the famous plays and exhibitions in the 1920s and 1930s, to name just a few.

Until the beginning of the 1920s, there were still charming old fashioned wooden houses and cobbled streets, which were built during the Edo period (1600-1868) here and there in the downtown of Tokyo. However, many of them were destroyed by the Great Earthquake of 1923 and air-raids of 1945. After the war, the downtown was changed dramatically. There were a number of concrete and steel buildings, modern types of infrastructure and transport systems established in the late 1960s. People's lifestyle and ways of thinking had been changed, and they tended to seek for the convenience. However, in the 1970s, the downtown people started to realise that their original culture containing charming old-fashioned wooden houses and possessions had been disappearing whilst the modern types of buildings and facilities had been introduced. They gathered together and begged the Taito Ward office to establish the museum whereby scores of nostalgic documents, valuable pieces of furniture and treasure could be preserved and displayed to the public. The Shitamachi Folk Museum was opened in 1980 and has attracted a number of tourists throughout the year.

The museum changes exhibitions regularly. We found the display of the former communal bathhouse's changing rooms for men and women divided by the entrance where the users would pay for the facilities and receive the towels and soap. I explained to Mark that the communal bath has been associated with Japanese culture, and there are one or two communal bathhouses in every town and village in Japan.

Until the mid 1980s, there were a considerable number of households without bath facilities. It is generally damp and humid between spring and autumn in Japan, and it is necessary for Japanese people to have a bath everyday. If their bathroom facilities were out of order, they would go to the communal bath in their towns. I remember going to the communal bath, which was a similar style to the displayed one, and meeting some of the classmates when I was a teenager.

Rikugien
We went back to Ueno station and got on JR Yamanote line for Komagome station. There was an English signpost indicating for Rikugien. We found the entrance off the street along Hongo Road. We paid ¥400 for the admission.

The garden was built by Yoshiyasu Yanagisawa, a famous favourite of the fifth shogun, Tsunayoshi Tokugawa, as his villa in 1702. It is a typical Edo-style kaiyu pond garden with hills and pond. It was quite warm in the afternoon on 25 May, so we followed the woodland walk. There were several authentic teahouses and remains of the former teahouses, and old trees which were planted by historical celebrities and appear in famous tales.

The woodland trail led us to teahouses with thatched roof, winding brook with stone bridges, waterfall, stepping stones, and picturesque corners. We saw a shoal of carp and turtles sitting in the sun. Quite a few people were sketching. We enjoyed overlooking the pond garden from the hill. All of the trees and shrubs had lush foliage, and they offered a tranquil environment, and the dense wood sheltered us from the heat. We found Rikugien a very beautiful landscape garden situated in the middle of the urban city.

Restaurant in fishmonger's house
Takako had booked the restaurant near Nakameguro station for us to start at 6 o'clock. The restaurant where she brought us to was very unique. It was at the back of the fishmonger's property, furnished with the veneer tables and seats, the body of which were assembled with empty boxes of beer or coke crates. Diners could leave their bags underneath the seats, although they don't look secure, as the empty beer boxes had holes where anybody could snatch the bags.

The standard menu included "alive fish or seashells" which diners would have to cook on the portable gas provided on the table. I knew Mark could eat raw fish but would be discouraged to see "the alive fish or seashells" to be cooked. We ordered slices of raw tuna and mackerel, ham fries, fried chicken, fried garlic, and fresh tuna slices which we cooked on the portable gas. I had two glasses of sake.

We found that Michiko wasn't able to come by 8:30, so we decided to move to another place. Apparently, Sachiko wanted to have coffee and checked the nearest cafe with her mobile. Takako took us to the riverside along the Meguro river, which is one of the best viewing spots of cherry blossoms in April. All of the cherry blossom trees had dark green foliage.

Tawara
My friends found the stylish cafe, Tawara, which translates as slates. The restaurant serves dishes with plates which were made of slates. There was an interesting selection of teas. Mark had chai and I ordered rose tea. My friends ordered some savoury dishes, e.g. pasta, onion fries, and we took some of them. We ordered one of the seasonal specials, i.e. sundae with green tea flavoured ice cream, raisins, and cornflakes, and Mark enjoyed eating it.

The Book Town of Tokyo
We had planned strolling through the book town of Tokyo, west of Kanda between morning and late afternoon on 29 May. I hadn't been there. Having known that the address is the west of Kanda, we got off at Kanda and walked on Yasukuni Dori towards Jimbocho. After walking past the Sungadai Junction, there were a number of bookshops appearing in the near distance.

We popped in several bookshops and found English and European language books. Mark thought many books were priced at the reasonable rates and bought a classic book "The heart of Midlothian" written by Sir Walter Scott. We continued walking around the book town and popping in the shops. Mark enjoyed flicking through pages of Japanese magazines containing lovely pictures of pets and amusing cartoons. We bought the reference book related to Ainu people's houses and properties where they have been kept for the exhibitions, and a couple of history books. There were hundreds of bookshops laden with piles of second-hand books, antiquarian books, rare and valuable first editions around Jimbocho station.

The most famous shop was arguably Yaguchi Shobo, where the retailers deal with countless old scripts of well-known plays. I found the information board of the book town. Sadly, English information was illegible and not fully written, and I translated it for Mark as follows: Jimbocho district was resided in by Samurai in Edo period (1600-1868). After the Meiji Restoration, prestigious universities were built and there were a lot of students who were studying law, economics, politics, science, and other specialist subjects, and thus it was necessary for libraries and bookshops to be built in the west of Kanda. There were quite a few bookshops, e.g. Kanda Furusho Centre, Yaguchi shobo, Hara shobo, which have been running since the end of the 19th century. Luckily, Americans seemed to avoid dropping bombs in the Jimbocho Book District for the preservation and therefore many of the old-fashioned bookshops have remained intact. There are approximately 200 bookshops and 110 of them deal with second-hand books in the Jimbocho district. It is said that one third of the printed second hand books of Japan are distributed to those bookshops and they possess a huge variety of genre, e.g. literature, philosophy, social science, performing arts, law, economics, commerce, politics, Asian and Western history, archaeology, astronomy, linguistics, geology, cockery, gardening, scripts, to name just a few.

We continued strolling through the book town after lunch. As well as second-hand books, these bookshops were selling various types of printed documents, e.g. old Ukiyoe journals, numerous old postage stamps, memorable tickets, pamphlets, posters, scrolls of famous Japanese tales, unfinished work of famous authors and well-known authors signatures and hand-written letters, etc.

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