Ginzaline

July 27, 2014

In-Out Building

You pass this building so many times, on the west bank of the Sumida, heading south from Asakusa toward Kuramae. You’ve almost done pondering what the rusty iron doors could be for. You imagine one was for something going in, and the other for going out. Today there is a fellow taking photographs of it.…

July 26, 2014

Some Bazaar

“Authentic” is the Vietnamese eatery in the Asakusa station basement (near Fukuchan), and it’s also the theme of in-kyo‘s take on a bazaar this First Saturday, August 2. Real Vietnamese food with no MSG. How about that? Equally bazaar is Salvia‘s theme of summer accessories and antiques. And there’s the long-awaited follow-up to Waplus and…

July 21, 2014

Out With the Bathwater

Yep one of these scenes is not like the other. When Ume no Yu bathhouse closed some time ago, a sign by the entrance suggested this would only be temporary. So much for that. The plug has been pulled. If Plum Springs is to flow again, it’s not in this world. But who’s to say it…

July 19, 2014

Walk and Ride

You glide up beside them this quiet afternoon at the back of Kappabashi. Hello, he says. What’s that? Yes, Rhodesian Ridgeback. We’re going for a walk. You want to walk him? He unclips the leash and offers it to you as you ride alongside. What a calm-looking dog. As long as that tongue keeps drinking…

July 12, 2014

Bean Culture

Deep-fried in spongy sheets or raw and silken-cool; seared and crumbly, or as juicy dumplings…the tofu products by Yuriko Takami and her family at Takami Shokuhin have been a Kuramae staple for about one hundred years. Yuriko also supplies a sushi restaurant, as well as her son’s izakaya Kikyou in Asakusa. A lucky cat brings…

June 30, 2014

Straw Hats and Leis (Event)

Slap on some sunscreen and float on the heat from the asphalt and the hint of sea breeze off the Sumida this First Saturday, around Kuramae and other parts of Taito-ku. Be part of the “gathering of straw hats” at fabric and accessory store Salvia. Downstairs in the same building at Naoto and Kawauso there…

June 29, 2014

Overtaken

It’s old news that Satomi Pet House in Kaminarimon closed in April. But as you never marked the end of this era, maybe you should. Because you realise soon there will be no shops left like this – the family-run outlets selling electrical, kitchen goods, gardenware, bicycle gear and pet supplies. They’ll never return, they’ll…

June 26, 2014

Hot Wheels

Naoki Kitajima of Punch Cycle You like the big poster on my building? Well that’s nice. I don’t know who it is, a friend made it. It was shot in Tokyo. What’s special about Punch Cycle? Hahaha. Well, I like the idea of never saying no to a job. Because you’ll never learn about your…

June 21, 2014

Dyed Pretty

Maito Komuro makes magic. That’s how it seems, just like when someone first showed you photographic developing, a sort of wizardry. See, in this plastic bucket, in the workshop behind the showroom of his self-named store in Kuramae, behind his hanging racks and shelves of delicate natural-fibre clothes, see this purpleish blackish liquid. And here…