Rob Goss - Japan Traveler’s Companion: Japan’s Most Famous Sights From Okinawa to Hokkaido

About Tuttle
Books to Span the East and West

Our core mission at Tuttle Publishing is to create books which bring people together one page at a time. Tuttle was founded in 1832 in the small New England town of Rutland, Vermont (USA). Our fundamental values remain as strong today as they were thento publish best-in-class books informing the English-speaking world about the countries and peoples of Asia. The world has become a smaller place today and Asias economic, cultural and political influence has expanded, yet the need for meaningful dialogue and information about this diverse region has never been greater. Since 1948, Tuttle has been a leader in publishing books on the cultures, arts, cuisines, languages and literatures of Asia. Our authors and photographers have won numerous awards and Tuttle has published thousands of books on subjects ranging from martial arts to paper crafts. We welcome you to explore the wealth of information available on Asia at www.tuttlepublishing.com.

Ginkakuji in Kyoto in autumn.

CHAPTER 1

TOKYO

INTRODUCING TOKYO

Unlike historic Kyoto and Nara, Tokyo only came to prominence in the early 1600s. Then, just little more than a village named Edo, shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu chose to turn the modest fortifications overlooking Edo into a mighty castle from where he would rule his newly unified country. From there, the de facto capital boomed, and by the time of the Meiji Restoration of 1868when Edo officially took Kyotos place as capital, and had its name changed to Tokyo (the Eastern Capital)the village had transformed into a city of 600,000. Its not looked back. Today Tokyo is home to almost fourteen million, a number that swells to more than thirty-five million if you include the parts of neighboring prefectures that make up the Greater Tokyo area. With that there are no surprises when it comes to Tokyos energy, its crowds, and its color, but they are just a few parts of a metropolis that mixes touches of the old with swathes of the ultra-modern.

Dressed up for the 7-5-3 festival

Shibuya Crossing

Tokyo Skytree

Shibuya on Halloween

Harajuku Cosplayers

Sensoji Temple

Imperial Palace

Meiji Shrine

GINZA AND THE IMPERIAL PALACE

Tokyos Bustling Central Districts

For generations Ginza has signified Tokyo at its most exclusive. Just drop the name and for many Japanese it will conjure up images of fine dining, plush department stores and boutiques, not to mention the exorbitantly priced hostess clubs that boomed in the 1980s bubble. Thats not a new thing; the areas connection to wealth goes well beyond recent memory. In its earliest Edo-era days, Ginza was home to a silver mint ( gin za, hence the areas name) created by the first Edo shogun, Tokugawa Ieyasu, the man who united a war-torn Japan at the turn of the seventeenth century and, with Tokyo (then called Edo) as his new capital, initiated an (almost) isolationist dynasty that would last until the Meiji Restoration of the 1860s.

I n the Meiji era, Ginza was at the forefront of Tokyos Western-influenced development. With the support of European architects, the district saw its fire-prone wooden buildings replaced by stone architecture, its muddy streets transformed into paved roads, and eventually the advent of electric trams and subways. Head to the Ginza Crossing today and you can still see examples of that early architecture in the shape of the Wako department store, whose curved granite faade and clock tower (first built in 1894, but then redone shortly after the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake) stand across from another landmark in the prestigious 1930-built Mitsukoshi department store.

Today, shopping is one of the major draws to Ginza. Along with Mitsukoshi and Wako, you have branches of Matsuya and Printemps department stores, the plush Ginza 6 shopping complex, a slew of sleekly designed flagships for European luxury brands like Bulgari, Cartier, Chanel, and Omega (to call out just a handful) andhighlighting the trend toward simple, un-branded fashionsmajor local branches of local retailers Muji and Uniqlo. Then, of course, comes the food. It isnt all in the wallet-hurting category, but the fact that thirty-eight restaurants in Ginza have Michelin stars speaks volumes. If you wanted to splurge on the best sushi, finest tempura or most expensive wagyu steak, Ginza would be the place to do it. Yet on the flipside, if you wanted something cheaper, the restaurants under the elevated train tracks that cut between Ginza and the Imperial Palace area have the cheerful side of Japanese cuisine with yakitori joints, izakaya and plenty of other casual places.

And what of the Imperial Palace area? Heading there from the Marunouchi side of Tokyo Station you get a real clash of the old and the new, the stations restored historic 1914 faade dwarfed by the skyscrapers of the Marunouchi business district, shimmering giants that appeared during Marunouchis much needed facelift of the early 2000s and which on the opposite side to the station now cast their reflections in the outer moats of the palace grounds. Beyond some simple but unspectacular gardens, there isnt really all that much to explore at the palacealthough the uninterrupted three-mile (five-kilometer) running loop around it is one of the best runs in Tokyobut that doesnt stop busloads upon busloads of visitors from coming to snap photos of the moats and the few off-limits structures that are visible. And to be fair, as Tokyo goes, the classic palace photothe doubled-arched Nijubashi Bridge in the foreground with an Edo-era guard tower poking through thick woods beyond the moat behindis undoubtedly one of Tokyos most iconic historic sights.

The Wako department store at the Ginza Crossing.