Ever Hear of Shitamachi? A Quiet Corner in TokyoPrepared by Harold Stephens
Travel Correspondent for Thai Airways International
All those stories we hear about Tokyo are true. The Japanese capital is one of the biggest and most populated cities in the world with some ten million inhabitants, a couple of hundred thousand taxis, 35,000 restaurants and an influx of millions of tourists every year.
And it's all true what they say about crowded public transportation—the subways are so jam-packed at traffic rush hours that ex-sumo wrestlers are employed to push passengers into cars so the doors can close. Getting around by taxi or bus during these hours is not much better.
But not all Tokyo is hustle and bustle. There's a quiet corner across the bridge from Asakusa that I'd like to tell you about.
Usually, when I arrive at Narita Airport, I take a bus into central Tokyo. It takes more than two hours. Once in town I shop around for a place to stay.
On my last visit to Japan, a friend recommended that I take the train and for a quiet place to stay I should go to Shitamachi. "You'll like it," he said. "It's something different". I decided to give it a try.
Taking the train proved to be easier, faster and less expensive than travelling by bus. And more convenient. Trains depart every 20 minutes from the basement of Narita Airport and take only an hour to reach Uemo in central Tokyo. From Uemo it was a simple transfer and three stops to Asakusa Station, the heart of Shitamachi.
From the station, a short taxi ride took me across the Azuma Bridge over the Sumidogawa River to one of the most pleasant and quiet sections of Tokyo that I had not believed possible in that city. It was like arriving in suburbia.
The area, my friend said, is the oldest in Tokyo. It's residential with dozens of small hotels and tiny restaurants on every street. I checked into a hotel for US$50 a night and around the corner found a restaurant that seated four. Here I took most of my meals. The place was almost comical. The Japanese lady chef cooked on a brazier right on the counter. After my first visit she treated me more like a family member than a customer.
The neighborhood east of the river is a great place to stay, not only to escape the crowds but it's less than a fifteen minute walk to one of Tokyo's most interesting areas—Asakusa.
Asakusa has long been the very heart of Shitamachi. In Edo times, Asakusa was a halfway stop between the city and its most infamous pleasure district, Yoshiwara. In time, however, Asakusa developed into a pleasure quarter in its own right, eventually becoming the centre for that most loved of Edo entertainments, kabuki.
Little of old Shitamachi remains. One way to get some idea of how things were back then is to visit Uemo's Shitamachi Fuzoku Shiryokan History Museum. Strolling through the museum is stepping back through the ages.
In its time, Edo was a city of wood and the natural stained-wood frontages and dark tiled roofs gave the city an attractiveness that is little in evidence in modern Tokyo. Nevertheless, the common people lived in horribly crowded conditions, in flimsy wooden constructions often with earthen floors. Conflagrations, which often wiped out entire streets, were a regular affair. In fact, fires occurred with such frequency that it has been estimated that any Shitamachi structure could reckon on a life span of about twenty years, often less, before it would be destroyed.
Modern building techniques have eliminated Edo's infamous fires but you can still see the occasional wooden structure that has miraculously survived into the early 21st century.
When Japan ended its self-imposed isolation with the commencement of the Meiji Restoration, it was in Asakusa that the first cinemas opened, in Asakusa that the first music halls appeared and in Asakusa's Teikoku Gekijo Theatre (Imperial Theatre) that Western opera was first performed before Japanese audiences. It was also in Asakusa that another Western cultural export to the Japanese—the striptease—was introduced. A few clubs still operate in the area.
Asakusa never quite recovered her former glory after World War II. Other areas of Tokyo assumed Asakusa's role of pleasure district. Asakusa may be one of the few areas of Tokyo to have retained something of the spirit of Shitamachi but the bright lights have shifted elsewhere notably to Ginza and Shinjuku.
To enjoy Asakusa one has to be prepared to walk. Many of the streets are arcaded with glass roofs to protect pedestrians from the weather. Shinnakamise is the most popular of these streets.
With the exception of signs that read SALE there is little else written in English. A good street map with both Japanese and English is recommended. Also it's advisable to change money before wandering around Asakusa. There are no money exchangers and merchants are reluctant to accept foreign currency.
Most of the merchandise is inexpensive; but not the things you would want to carry home, unless you are looking for kimonos, yukatas and assorted traditional accessories.
The shops, many of them outdoor stalls, have no shortage of women's handbags, wallets, belts and watches. Nor is the area short on toy shops, with mechanical toy bears pounding on drums and clowns that do flip flops on the street. There are lots of fur shops. You can buy a lovely fur jacket for 6,800 yen, or a woolen sweater for 4,900 yen.
And there are haberdashers of all kinds and types although few Japanese wear hats. If you want to take home a souvenir that's lasting, you can stop in one of the tattoo shops.
Some sections are a reminder of New Orleans with street lamps that look like the old fashion gas lanterns.
Don't fear to take off down any of the side alleys. It's easy to get lost but then that can be the fun of it. You can't tell what you might find—bowling alleys, video shops, broom-closet-size restaurants with bamboo fronts and, sandwiched between them, a garish McDonald’s. Perhaps it's a pet shop with furry dogs that look more like toys rather than real live animals. I even saw a Chinese laundry in one alley and a body building gym in another where muscle men tossed huge weights around.
Asakusa has a park for kids and a larger Hanayashiki Amusement park with Ferris wheels and other rides.
When you tire of walking, you can sit in a cafe and watch the parade of passing people. Pretty Japanese girls in mini skirts and high boots and fur jackets. Business men with briefcases hurrying home. Housewives doing their shopping. And school kids with book packs on their backs. But few tourists.
You can't help finding some action, of sorts, in the streets and especially when you come to the theatre district. In front of one theatre I thought I had arrived at Mardi gras in Rio. The entire cast was out in front of the theatre greeting the audience as they were leaving. What the play had been I wouldn't dare guess because the male actors were near naked with gold painted bodies and samurai hair cuts while the women were in Gay 90's costumes. Other members of the cast who looked like Tibetan monks were beating drums and blowing on trumpets. It was lively and different.
Arcaded streets and a maze of alleys, restaurants and tiny eating stalls, shops of every sort and description, an amusement park, kabuki and other theatres, even gambling and the passing parade of Japanese, all have their special interest. But the real calling card to Asakusa is the Sensoji Temple, one of the most famous in Tokyo.
The Sensoji Temple enshrines a golden image of the Buddhist Kannon, goddess of mercy, who, according to legend, was miraculously fished out of the nearby Sumidogawa River by two fishermen in 628 A.D. In time, a temple was built to house the image, which has remained on the spot ever since, though successive rebuildings of the temple have taken place. It was completely destroyed in World War II.
If you approach Sensoji Temple from the subway station, you'll enter through the Kaminari-mon Gate (Thunder Gate). The gate houses a couple of wild looking gods: Fujin, the god of wind, on the right; and Raijin, the god of thunder, on the left.
Straight ahead through the gate is Nakamise-dori Avenue, a street of shops within the temple precinct where everything is sold from tourist trinkets to genuine Edo-style crafts. There's even a shop selling wigs to be worn with a kimono.
Nakamise-dori Avenue leads to the main temple compound. In front of the temple is a large incense cauldron where people go to rub smoke against their bodies to ensure good health. If any part of your body (as far as modesty permits) is giving you trouble, you should give it particular attention when 'applying' the smoke.
The temple itself is a post-war concrete reproduction of the original. But the temple is not the reason people go there. It's the sheer energy of the place that is the real attraction with its gaudy, almost fairground atmosphere lingering from Asakusa's past.
That in a nutshell is Shitamachi in what was once old Edo. And for that quiet place to stay where you can dine in a restaurant with four chairs, with a Japanese lady with gold teeth who does the cooking and treats you like family, just cross over the Azuma Bridge.
Next week we are back to food and eating, and I will ell readers about Bangkok’s extraordinary food fair
QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
Q. Dear Mr. Stephens,
In reference to your story on Big Foot, that appeared in Weekly Travel Feature, I thought you might like to know that the Malaysian government has appointed a team of scientists and experts to hunt for the "Bigfoot" beast after the recent reported sighting of three giant human-like creatures. I ordered a copy of your book Return to Adventure from Amazon.com and enjoyed your chapter on “The Mysterious Orient’ with the section of your discovery of big footprints in the jungle. After this you may have to add an epilogue at the end of the next printing. Thank you for your explanation. Bill Spense. Singapore
A. Dear Mr. Spense. Thank you for your e-mail about Big Foot. I fear the search or Big Foot in he Malay jungle might come to an end. I just heard from my friend, Tunku Mahmood Shah of Johor, that no outsider is allowed to make any attempt at finding or going into the bush to find Bigfoot. The Government said that they would charge anybody for trespassing if they tried. I guess the search has turned into a circus, and the government had to clamp down to save its forests and wildlife. But that doesn’t mean it’s over. —HS
Harold Stephens
Bangkok
E-mail: ROH Weekly Travel (booking@inet.co.th)
Note: The article is the personal view of the writer and does not necessarily reflect the view of Thai Airways International Public Company Limited. | 
