Another Sunday, another exciting journey in Tokyo. But where to this time? I woke up at 1PM, so I decided to save any outside-of-Tokyo trips for another day. I busted out my handy Lonely Planet book and accidentally flipped to a page with a walking tour of Tokyo. Where? Why, none other than Kagurazaka. I had never heard of it, but the book said a few things were there, so why not?
Kagurazaka is conveniently directly east of where I live, even if it is 35-50 minutes away. So, in standard fashion, I started walking.
I passed this mediocre-looking park and decided that I must take pictures.
I also passed this cool-looking place, but I had no idea what it was. If anyone has an idea, let me know.
The rest of the walk was kind of uninteresting. Before I knew it, I arrived at Kawameguro. The main area is a pedestrian-only roadway filled with food shops, boutiques, and even some game/pachinko places.
Very soon I passed some food-on-a-stick place (yakitori? kushiage? I dunno...). The guy was cooking fish and onion on a stick right there on the sidewalk! I'm only human, so I bought two.
The guy selling them and the random old ladies around were happy I got some, and after making some small talk with them I kept on my way. As I continued down the pedestrian road, there was even more food, including this crazy selection of fried-everything!
According the Lonely Planet book, I needed to get to the Kagurazaka train station, and then my first destination, Akagi-Jinja would be right nearby. I got to the train station alright, but I didn't see where the shrine was; it wasn't even on the maps outside. I was very confused and after five or ten minutes standing around awkwardly comparing my book to various maps, I just followed my best guess and got going.
That's when the wandering began. The whole area around Kagurazaka is filled with quiet, small residental streets, with a boutique or cafe every three blocks or so. I must have gone in some sort of crazy circle or spiral or something; I kept coming up with new ideas of where Akagi-Jinja was, and of course they were all wrong. You heard it here, people: never trust my sense of direction.
I asked some French cafe clerk (the pastries smelled and looked really good, but they were expensive...) where the shrine was, and he busted out a map and gave me directions. How does everyone have maps here? It's kind of ridiculous. I guess the address system makes it difficult to find places. I followed his instructions and made it out of the first set of confusing residential streets. This led me to a new area map (area maps are all over the place on random streets here, which is really helpful for navigation), which advertised Akagi-Jinja, Tsukudo Hachiman-Jinja and Zenkoku-ji, all of which were on my itinerary. However, it only showed Tsukudo Hachiman-Jinja on the map, so I decided I would go there first.
After more wandering and map-checking, I ended up at the block that I decided definitely contained Tsukudo Hachiman-Jinja. But where was it? I always thought shrines were big. Maybe not huge, but at least big enough to see when you're standing within 100 feet of them. I was wrong. After circling the block once or twice, I found an old stairway that led up to what's just a small piece of the block, containing Tsukudo Hachiman-Jinja.
The place itself was kind of empty, but I still got some sweet pictures.
Also, right next to the stairs was a playground area.
Yes, those things on the bottom (top of the photo) are Shinkansen-shaped bouncy ridey things, and yes, I played on them, and yes, it was totally awesome.
With one of the three things I needed to see done, I felt slightly more accomplished but still yearning to see more. I checked the book again and found out that Zenkoku-ji was in part of the rest of the pedestrian road I was at before, so I headed there, post-haste.
That picture took me so long to take, since bikers and people kept coming by.
As I reached the south end of the pedestrian road, I saw a giant line of students going into the JR station. Where were they all coming from? I followed them backwards to see where they were leaving.
In just a few minutes the train of kids ended, and I hadn't figured out where they came from. But I had been lead onto a walkway next to the river, so I took some pictures.
I now had seen two of the three places I wanted to, in addition to the cool pedestrian road. But where was Akagi-Jinja? I decided to start from square one: I headed back to the Kagurazaka train station. Checking the maps once more gave me a little bit of a better idea where it was. Just as with the other shrine, I managed to find the block it was supposed to be in, but I could not see it at all. I followed my same strategy of circling the block, but all I found was some set of stairs that looked like they might even be part of someone's property. Not letting that stop me, I climbed them, and lo and behold!
What? Just a single torii and a tiny house? I knew this was supposed to be a small shrine, but, are you serious? I still don't know why this was all I could find. There was a lot of construction around the shrine, and according to wikipedia, they're turning part of the grounds into a residential area, but is this really all that's left?
I left satisfied, and with that decided to head back.
But wait, bonus park! Before I left, I saw on the map that there was a park right nearby, so I decided to check it out. "It's a park", I thought "it can't be that hard to find". Thankfully, this time I was right. Although the entrances still are squeezed into alleyways.
I'm pretty sure it's called Shiroganechou-Kouen (kouen means park in Japanese). I couldn't help myself but play a little bit on some of the things they had there. Also, what the hell is this thing? It doesn't look fun or safe.
After messing around in the park for a few minutes, I decided I was gonna head back, for reals. The walk back was cold.
-Benjamin
Lots of flags and stuff! Sweet; all I have to do is go in and order some ramen. There was a ticket vending machine, as is standard in a lot of these places. I wasn't exactly sure which was the one I wanted to get (hint: it's written on some of the stuff outside) so I picked the one on the machine written in red. Here it is:
Delicious noodles, chicken, and vegetables, all in a clear broth. Even with a side dish of green onions and something else I didn't recognize! It wasn't as heavy as a lot of the other ramen I've eaten recently, which was nice. It was delicious.
