Ginzaline

March 23, 2014

Diner

Atsushi meets you at the appointed hour at Mizukuchi shokudo, the family restaurant run by his family since before there were family restaurants. He speaks softly and shyly. But he doesn’t speak much. He says, If you want to ask about this place, you should really talk to my mum. She knows a lot more…

March 11, 2014

Big Thunder in Little China

It seemed like nothing at the start, but looks like it’s much bigger than just Asakusa. A huddle of young customers at your 7-Eleven, buying bulk boxes of chocolate bars. You can’t fail to notice it goes on every night for months. They crowd out the cash register. What on earth could be so popular?…

March 7, 2014

Wood Bamboo Plastic

Something for everyone down here on Kappabashi. On the way home from the library, in a restaurant-supply store beside a Chinese eatery, you buy a bath-time utensil. An oke, hand-bucket. Okuda Shoten, at the north end of the street. Wood, bamboo and synthetics. Some nice baskets, graters, lacquerware, ornamental boats to serve sashimi. Some extremely…

February 26, 2014

Flower Power

Yoshiko Niibayashi knows her blooms. She has been manager for 12 years of Floro Flower Palette, in the Asakusa theatre district. She graduated in agriculture then trained in flower arranging in the Netherlands. A bit incongruous-sounding, right? Japanese woman learns ikebana at Dutch school. But flowers are so plentiful there, and cheap, she says. And…

February 23, 2014

Start of Something (Event)

Begin March with a stroll…of Kuramae this First Saturday – you might find a bargain among the designer ceramics and accessories at Syuro‘s flea market, or the stalls at Designers Village, or the Spring-feel socks and fabrics at Salvia, and further down the river, genmai – brown rice – sweets and farmers’ produce at genmai izakaya Yuwaeru.…

February 14, 2014

The Last Curry

Ken Hatsumi (above) was already a confirmed addict when he got the call from Shintaro Takagi. Let’s make curry together. Some years previously Ken had taken his bride on their honeymoon to New Delhi. Curry had entered his blood. Shintaro says, Ken was a spice curry addict. The two young men were schoolmates from Adachi-ku…

February 8, 2014

Spring Break

Would you call this a “light blizzard”? It’s certainly coming from all directions in Asakusa this afternoon, though you can count yourself lucky, it’s not like it’s you, having to stand around in it, touting for customers, not that this seems to bother the intrepid rickshaw drivers like Masaki Honjo, in the black and white,…

February 4, 2014

This Old House

The more people who cram in here, the bigger it seems. Maybe because quite a few of the people concerned are very small, and jump about a lot, so you get a continuously changing sense of depth. Oh, how big this old house might feel to a child, with the high roof and different but…

January 31, 2014

First Things First (Event)

The map for 1st Saturday, on February 1st. kuramaemap feb