Japan 2006: Tokyo Old and New

Senso-ji at Asakusa

Old Tokyo, with its rougher crowd, can still be experienced on the east side of Tokyo, at Ueno, Asakusa, Nippori and Akihabara. (Nippori is where I stayed in a ryokan (traditional inn) with a obasan/innkeeper whom I can only describe as "cat-like".)

Tsukiji Wholesale Market

Tsukiji, right smack beside the corporate functioning of Marunouchi, is the site of the main fish market of Tokyo. This is the place to go for the freshest sashimi in town. Plans have been made to relocate the market, a tourist attraction in its own right, to further out of the city to make way for the expansion of the financial sector. Knowing the importance Japanese place on their food and their freshness, government officials would have to work very hard to overcome the public resistance to the plans.

Akihabara is the electronic centre of Tokyo. A former clustering of radio repair stores (which some still exist) have evolved in typical modern Japanese fashion into towering buildings of retail spaces and haphazard road layouts.