Ueno Park at dusk / Photo by Wang Shuai
To be honest, every time I write about Taitung District, it will make people have some headaches, and there is too much to say in this area. Not only because it is an old neighborhood of Tokyo, which has been mentioned more than once before, but it is also a particularly well-known tourist destination. Mr. Lu Xun's remark that "the cherry blossoms in Ueno Park are blooming" attracts many people to Taitung every year, not to mention the Asakusa Kannon Temple and the Tokyo National Museum.
"Lonely Foodie" is also strange, in the third season, just went to Taitung District, but by the seventh episode of the fourth season, Comrade Goro went to Taitung again. However, the last time he appeared in the Tanigen Chiichi area in the north, there was a morning glory market in Ugui valley, and this time, he went to the new Okachimachi town in the south, and the span was still quite large.
There is not much to say about the new Okachimachi, because it is still an old residential area in Tokyo, and everything that should have been said in the past has been said, and it is not interesting to repeat. So what do you mean? After thinking about it, I took something from the bottom of the pressure box and talked about how I could get fresh around Ueno Park and Senso Kannon-ji Temple.
In Abu Travel Notes, it is the difference between a Japanese artisan street that most tourists are mostly unaware of and does not appear in the series, which is the Kurazen near the new Okachimachi.
Tourism Geography of Taitung District
Where is the hiding place? Let's first look at the tourism map of the entire Taitung District to be able to understand its location:
Taitung District Travel Map /Abu Travel Handbook Map
As shown above, for Chinese tourists, few people come to Tokyo to rub shoulders with Taitung, because its northwest is the Ueno Gift Park and Ueno Zoo that have long been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people along with the language textbooks, and the Tokyo National Museum next door to it has a variety of exhibitions that are not easy to see in other places every year, and it is also a must-visit place for many cultural people.
Further northwest of Ueno Park, there is Sendagi.
Remember what we said earlier, the Tanigenchi area, which represents the style of the old neighborhood of Edoshita Town? Among them, "Qian" is the neighborhood around Qiandaomu, and the east of Qiandaomu is the valley that also belongs to Taitung District, which has a valley Ginza, which also appeared in Jay Chou's MV last year. South of Chidagi, out of Taito is Nezu in Bunkyo Ward, which is not far from the University of Tokyo.
To the east of Taito District, next to the Sumida River is Asakusa Kannon-ji Temple. As the oldest temple in Tokyo, not only in the Edo period, it was already a place of recreation and blessing for locals, in recent years, you ask a Chinese who has been to Tokyo, and how many people do not know, or have not been to Senso Kannon-ji Temple?
Looking south, out of Taito Ward, you will reach Akihabara in Chiyoda District, and further south, you will find Nihonbashi, the Imperial Palace, and Ginza, Tokyo's busiest trading district, which is not shown on the map.
The old house near Gu Genqian / Photographed by Wang Shuai
Stringing together these well-known tourist spots in Tokyo, we will find that the new Michimachi where Goro originally went was surrounded by them, and the location of the new Mito to the east, near the Sumida River, is Kuramae. From Asakusa Kannon-ji Temple to Ueno Gift Park to Kurazen, the three dots are connected to an equilateral triangle.
In this episode, Goro goes to a Japanese-style izakaya in Torigoshi, Taitung. Look at the dishes inside, from pork chop sandwiches to Akira's cream pasta, etc., basically Japanese Western food, in addition, it also has raw ham, air-dried water rare fish and other sake side dishes, and it is really izakaya.
About the Japanese izakaya, Abu Travel Notes has said before, the only suggestion here is that it is not recommended that Chinese tourists bring their parents to eat, because it is too Japanese, most of them will eat unaccustomed, of course, for the Japanese, this shop is still quite welcome, Tablog 3.56 points, is a very high rating, the play to see its interior decoration, but also very good.
Torikoshi that shop / "Lonely" 4 screenshot
The location of this shop is in the heart of the Torigoshi area, just a few steps from the Torigoshi Shrine on the map, which is home to large festivals every summer, and if I remember correctly, there are relatively large festivals. Torigoshi Shrine was a few steps northeast of the shrine, and it was in front of Kuramae.
This place will not be well known to tourists, it seems inevitable, because it has been flooded with various well-known tourist spots around it, but this does not mean that it does not have character and history.
In the Edo period, this place was strategically important because it was the place where the Edo shogunate was located, and to this day, the Sumida River still bears the mark of the year, the Asakusa Imperial Monument.
Sumida River Remote View Kurazen /Tokyo Deep screenshot
Sumida Chuan in the rain / Wang Shuai
During the Edo period, 400,000 stones of rice were transported from all over Japan every year to be stored here, and then distributed to samurai directly under the shogunate, and the street in front of the rice barn became known as "Kuramae" over time. Today, Kurazen is known as Artisan Street by Tokyoites because it is a gathering block for craftsmen ranging from leather to metal ornaments.
Walk into the front of tibet
How did Abu Travel Notes know about this place? In addition to the family's books about Tokyo, in the past we also watched a documentary about Tokyo, "Tokyo Deep", one episode of which was filmed in Kurazen, and it was led by Japanese actress Reiko Takashima, which was very impressive.
In this film, Takashima asks a toy shop owner of a five-generation purpose why there are many old toy shops in the Kurazen area, and the owner replies that since the Edo period, many people will follow the road in front of the shop that extends north from the Sumida River to Asakusa to worship Kannon, and there will be souvenir shops on the roadside, and then there will be toy shops and other handicraft shops, which gradually become what they are now.
Reiko Takashima/Screenshot of Tokyo Deep
Now in Kuramae, there are not only toy stores, but also more interesting shops.
For example, a stationery store that offers personalized customization, if you want a handmade notebook of your own, you are right here.
Takashima went to such a stationery store, really did not expect that even if it is a notebook, from the cover to the inner page, and then to the buckle, there are more than 100 kinds of accessories to choose from, and when you choose the accessories, the boss will combine these accessories and make a notebook for you within 10 minutes.
But this notebook is not yet completely complete. Because he will take you to a small gilding workshop nearby with a history of more than 100 years and gild your name. And this is just the last link of a hand-made notebook, and there are more links in the collaboration of the small workshops before the collection, hidden in it.
Gilded/Screenshot of Tokyo Deep
For example, the paper cutting of the notebook is done by a nearby paper-cutting workshop with a history of more than 70 years, while the leather that makes the cover and buckle is personally cut by a 40-year-old craftsman, and even sandwiched in the notebook - it is also completed by a 62-year-old workshop.
Such a notebook is really quite personal, never realized that even a small book, can have such a fine division of labor, and are old shops that have existed for many years. Having said that, we are also curious, what kind of people would use such a painstaking production of notebooks? Presumably, there is still some demand, otherwise these stores will not continue to exist.
In the film, there is also a SIGNAL VILLAGE made by the Taitung District Entrepreneurship Support Agency to train young craftsmen, which is also equivalent to a designer incubation center. We saw that in the abandoned elementary school classroom, there were music-loving designers making glass jewelry that could represent the music world, and it looked OK.
Musical Wind Glass Jewelry / Tokyo Deep Screenshot
This place plays the role of exporting designers and a younger generation of craftsmen to The Former Tibetans – since its opening in 2004 in 2004, 52 groups of designers have graduated, and half of them have opened small workshops and stores in the Area around Tibet.
Just like the handmade notebook shop, whether it is a handbag or a small thing such as a button, in front of the hiding, you can experience a completely different shopping experience from Ginza - face-to-face communication with the small craftsman, and then according to his own preferences, look at the goods that meet your heart, step by step in his hands.
There is also a place called Gourmet Alley near Tibet, although Goro did not go, but the delicatessen in the hutong is different from any shop he has been to, because it is more like a takeaway shop near the various business districts in downtown Shanghai today, packed and taken away, and it is still a specialty store that has been operating for many years and has been passed down for many generations.
Street view of Deli Alley/Screenshot of Tokyo Deep
For example, the tenant shop that has been in business since 1935, the miso shop that brings together more than 80 kinds of miso in Japan, and the fish shop that has been open for more than 120 years, the owner is also the fifth generation, which not only sells raw fish, but also sells freshly grilled fish, because 90% of customers prefer grilled fish.
In this film, there is also a barrage spit from a domestic audience, which is more funny.
The owner of the toy store in the film did what he thought was remarkable - reviving the Japanese production line incense fireworks. He said that compared to the Chinese product, 1 yen / stick, his incense fireworks, 50 yen / piece, but his product can be fired for 2 minutes, while China can only last 30 seconds.
Then, the Barrage of Chinese audiences came - "I pick up 50 sticks in the Heavenly Dynasty to see if you are afraid or not, the same price."