Dear readers, I’m back with a new installment of my walk around Tokyo’s Yamanote Line. The following piece is part of a special edition of my new book on the Yamanote Line project, Guru-guru Tokyo, that I’ll be offering exclusively to my readers. More about it later.

My exploration of Osaki over, I return to the Meguro River, headed toward Tokyo Bay.

From Iruki Bridge, not far from where the Yamanote Line makes a sharp northward turn, I get a front-row view of the Shinkansen gliding in from the south toward Shinagawa Station. A moment later, the green Yamanote cars dart away in the opposite direction, weaving through the city’s dense rhythms. With a little patience, and a bit of luck, you might catch the two trains as they briefly overlap, like a momentary crossing of worlds.

This is a paradise for trainspotters and other assorted train otaku, who can admire the steady stream of passing trains, including the blue convoys of the JR Keihin Tohoku Line and the red streaks of the Keikyu Line. Otherwise, you can position yourself directly beneath the elevated tracks, close your eyes, and simply revel in the deafening roar of steel and motion rushing overhead.

Tokyo is a city of liminal places: in-between zones of temporal dissonance where identities blur. Tokyo abounds in such thresholds. The buried flow of the Shibuya River, a humble stream glimpsed alongside towers. The makeshift shrines behind convenience stores. The coin laundry beside a forgotten jizō statue. They are part of what makes the city more than a collection of districts. They give it depth, a soul made not of grandeur, like in Paris, but of haunting transitions.

I discover one such space next to the Yamanote Line’s sharpest curve. A centuries-old cemetery belonging to Tokai-ji, a venerable Buddhist temple, lies physically and metaphorically wedged between multiple rail tracks as the trains keep rushing by one after another. Borrowing a line from Iain Sinclair, alienation flourishes in territory trapped between railways: Yamanote Line, Keihin-Tohoku Line, Shonan-Shinjuku Line. Steel nerves of Tokyo’s circulatory system.

This may be the only place in Tokyo where you can get so close to the Shinkansen “in the wild” – outside a station, without glass or barriers – that you could almost touch it. A narrow path winds through the labyrinthine cemetery and then abruptly ends at the railway wall. As you stand there, wondering what it all means, a bullet train blindsides you, snapping you out of your reverie. Here the dead can only rest in peace at night.

The clanging trains produce a kind of sonic contradiction, an uneasy coexistence between Buddhist tranquility and mechanical frenzy. This is not simply a contrast of old and new; it is what the British writer Robert Macfarlane might call deep topography: the idea that every landscape is a palimpsest, a text written and rewritten over centuries, each layer still faintly legible, if you learn how to read it. A city, in other words, is not only what it builds, but what it remembers.

A walk around the cemetery is a practical lesson in psychogeography. Here, among the tombs, stone lanterns and trees, you feel the emotional, unconscious effects that a place has on both your body and mind. You feel it in the sudden drop in temperature near a mossy wall, in the way the gravel mutes your steps, in the glimpse of the outside world seen through the windows of a passing train.

There are some excellent people buried here. Take Nishimura Katsuzo, a business famous for his humility. He once remarked: “I have only a history of failures; there is no history of successes,” and indeed, his first enterprise almost ended in disaster. When only 33, he established Japan’s first Western-style shoe factory, triggered by a request from military reformer Omura Masujiro, who wanted quality footwear for Japan’s new army. But when Omura was murdered, the military stopped its orders, leaving Nishimura with overproduced goods and no buyers. Yet he rebounded spectacularly later that same year, securing a 42,000-pair order for military footwear from the imperial guard.

Nishimura didn’t stop with shoes: in 1875, he founded the Shinagawa Refractories Company, a firebrick factory whose most prominent legacy was contributing the red bricks for one of my future stops, the Tokyo Station building.

Near the site’s northernmost corner, where all the train tracks meet, I find the cemetery’s oddest-looking tomb: a smooth, shining black stone with an unusual, rounded dome shape – a “turtleback” design – something more commonly seen in Okinawa or Chinese diaspora graveyards. It’s the only spot surrounded by lots of flowers, and for a very good reason. It belongs to Shimakura Chiyoko. O‑Chiyo‑san was one of Japan’s most beloved enka singers. The so-called “Goddess of Enka“ burst into the scene at 16, in 1954, and one year later her “Kono yo no hana” sold over two million copies, a rare milestone for the era.

Shimakura’s career encapsulates the emotional core of enka – songs of longing, resilience, family, and bittersweet memory. She was a living thread of Japan’s postwar cultural tapestry, and the songs she sang often mirrored a personal life marked by struggle: a reported 1.6 billion-yen debt, suicide attempts, and a public battle with cancer, which took her life in 2013.

I listen to “Tokyo dayo, okkasan” (Mom, Here We Are in Tokyo!) on my mobile. The title sets the tone of the song: a daughter proudly showing her visiting mother the new, bustling capital she has grown up in. It also places Tokyo as both a character and a setting, evoking urban pride while honoring memory and loss.

It’s been a while since we’ve been able to walk together, holding hands.

I can’t help but remember my childhood.

Mom, this is Nijubashi Bridge. Let’s take a commemorative photo.

My kind brother will be waiting for you under the cherry blossoms, wanting to hear stories about the countryside.

Released in March 1957, the song captures a moment of postwar optimism. Tokyo is rebuilt, alive, and the daughter leads her mother through what had become a transformed, modern city. At the same time, mentioning the lost brother who died during the war, the song layers intimate grief onto Tokyo’s civic landscape. It’s both a family remembrance and a collective elegy.

By walking through historic sites like Nijubashi (Imperial Palace), Kudan-zaka, and Asakusa, the song becomes a tour through Tokyo’s past and present. The mother represents the prewar era; the daughter embodies the new, recovering society.

I’ve never been drawn to enka (all too often sad in a syrupy way, and relentlessly depressing) but Shimakura’s performance is sincere and heartfelt. Her gentle voice, slightly wavering at times, amplifies an unspoken emotional depth and catches me off guard. I find myself reaching for a tissue.

On my way out, I come across two more graves that bring a smile back to my face. In a sizeable, gated patch lies Takuan Soho, the Zen monk and calligrapher who founded Tokai-ji in 1616 but is now best remembered for giving the world his name in a pickle. Takuan was known for his rustic lifestyle and self-sufficiency, which included growing and preserving vegetables. In Zen culture, humble foods like pickled vegetables represent simplicity and seasonality. Takuan the monk wrote often about “everyday awareness”, and takuan the pickle lives on as a culinary echo of that philosophy: plain, preserved, and grounding.

In the other spot is buried Inoue Masaru, known as the “Father of Railways.” He was involved in the construction of Japan’s railways from the very beginning, completing Japan’s very first line between Shinbashi (Tokyo) and Yokohama in 1872. It is said that he chose this place as his grave because he wanted to watch over the railways even after his death.

I retrace my steps to the main road, passing yet another construction site. A new tower is rising behind construction fences. When it’s finished, it will almost certainly cast its shadow over the sacred grounds, burying it a little deeper in the city’s forgetting.

Trapped by multiple railways, the cemetery does not just lie between train lines, but between eras, functions, and states of being – between the spiritual and the industrial, the remembered and the erased, the still and the rushing. It is retreat and relic, invisible and yet impossible to ignore.

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Dear readers, last September I wrote about my walk from Meguro to Gotanda Station, part of my Yamanote Line project. I ended that story by pointing out that currently, TOC Building’s roof is off-limits. “Too bad,” I wrote. “It used to feature a strange coupling: a golf-driving range and a Shinto shrine. From there, you could also glimpse the distant hills where some of Tokyo’s most exclusive estates are nestled, including the neighborhood once home to the Shoda family, former Empress Michiko’s own.”

Sometime later, I decided to explore that posh neighborhood and visit its three main landmarks: Nemunoki Garden, Ikedayama Park, and Seisen University. Here’s my photo report.

I set out from Gotanda Station on a hot and muggy morning, the sort that makes even short distances feel like small expeditions. I was expecting something grander, but the streets of Kami‑Osaki are neither proud nor apologetic. They simply rise in a slow tilt toward the ridge. Tokyo’s hills are modest, but they have the stubbornness of old vertebrae.

Nemunoki Garden lies where you would not think to look for anything ceremonial. The neighborhood is very quiet, the houses discreet, the pavements incurious. You come upon the garden almost by mistake.

This was once the Shōda residence, where Michiko (the mother of the current emperor) grew up before becoming Empress. Shinagawa Ward turned the site into a public garden in 2004, though “public” feels slightly inaccurate. The place has the air of something borrowed, opened carefully, like a family album placed on a table for strangers to leaf through - slowly, and with clean hands.

At the center stands the nemunoki, the silk tree. Wherever you stand, you can see it. Then again, the garden is small enough to cross in thirty steps, yet it holds the residue of a vanished household. Around it grow plants that recur in Michiko’s poems or belonged to her childhood landscape.

The rose named for her - Princess Michiko - is the boldest note in the garden. It was bred in England in the 1960s.

The past survives in fragments. The front gate has been reconstructed, neither authentic nor false, but something in between. A small gas lamp stands nearby, modelled on the chimney of the old house, its function purely mnemonic. Poems appear on signs, short enough to read standing, as if unwilling to detain you. Courtship, marriage, departure - all are mentioned without ceremony.

Nothing here presses for attention. Flowers come and go with the seasons, roses fading and returning, the nemunoki holding its place without fanfare. People sit, stand, move on.

When Shōda Michiko grew up in Kami-Ōsaki (roughly the late 1930s through the immediate postwar years), the area was one of Tokyo’s upper-middle to elite residential districts. It was part of the Yamanote belt that had attracted industrialists, financiers, diplomats, and former aristocrats since the late Meiji and Taishō periods.

The Shōda family home stood among large detached residences set back from the street, often behind hedges or walls, with gardens rather than courtyards. This was not the flamboyant Westernized luxury of some Azabu or Aoyama mansions, but a more restrained, managerial prosperity - appropriate for Shōda Hideo, president of Nisshin Flour Milling. Kami-Ōsaki was the sort of neighborhood where wealth announced itself quietly, through space and distance rather than ornament.

The district also bore the marks of institutional proximity. Nearby were embassies, Catholic schools, convents, and later Seisen University - creating an environment that mixed secular elite life with religious and educational enclaves. This partly explains why Nemunoki Garden, today so understated, never reads as a “former palace” site: it belonged to a world where discretion was the prevailing aesthetic.

During the war, Kami-Ōsaki escaped the worst of the incendiary bombing that devastated lowland eastern Tokyo, though life was increasingly constrained. Families like the Shōdas lived with rationing, air-raid drills, and evacuation pressures, but the area retained a sense of contained domestic order. After the war, parts of the neighborhood - like many elevated residential zones - were requisitioned for Allied use, further altering its social texture.

Michiko’s later recollections and poems reflect this environment obliquely: plants, seasons, silence, enclosure, rather than streets or crowds. Nemunoki Garden’s present design - small, inward-looking, carefully curated - mirrors the emotional geography of the place more than its physical scale.

From there the road climbs toward Ikedayama Park, a place where the earth has been allowed to sag and breathe. I imagine children running along the paths in the afternoon, their voices rising and falling like birds startled from a thicket. The pond, green and inscrutable, seems older than the houses around it. I sit on a bench and watch the carp circle in slow, ceremonial loops, as if rehearsing a ritual.

At the top of the hill I come upon a small cluster of temples. A gardener is sweeping the grounds of one of them, his broom tracing slow arcs across the gravel. I ask why so many temples ended up here, perched above the city. He tells me they were moved after a great fire in the Edo period. It makes sense: many of the tombs in the adjoining cemeteries date from the 18th century.

I finally reach Seisen University.

Its campus is anchored by one of Josiah Conder’s finest residential designs, a two-story Italian Renaissance–inspired mansion that originally served as the Tokyo residence of Prince Shimazu Tadashige of the powerful Shimazu clan.

Designed by Conder - widely acknowledged as a pivotal figure in the introduction of Western architecture to Japan - the building was completed in the 1910s and features classical columns, expansive verandas, intricate stained-glass windows, fireplaces and woodwork that reflect both Western architectural principles and the refined artistic influence of the period.

Acquired by the Handmaids of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the early 1960s and adapted for use as Seisen University’s main hall, the mansion remains a tangible testament to early 20th-century cross-cultural design and aristocratic Japan while the surrounding gardens and historic structures contribute to a campus that feels like a living bridge between past and present.

By the time I leave the university, I’m exhausted. Summer in Tokyo is getting hotter and muggier every year. Walking toward the station, I feel like the old guy in the photo below.

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Dear readers, here’s the second part of my walk from Gotanda to Osaki stations. You can read the first part here and find all the Yamanote Line chapters here.

After wandering around the cluster of high-rises surrounding Osaki Station I’m hit by vertical fatigue. I’m desperate for a horizon that isn’t framed in glass and steel; something low, old, and human. So I head for the hills. From the station one cannot sense the topography of the area beyond the tracks and the skyscrapers, but the keen urban wanderer is a curious creature, always peeking behind corners in search of the unseen, and luckily, Osaki is one of those areas (they are becoming increasingly rare) where you can see the past layered beneath the new build, from Jomon-era relics to old religious sites and houses.

I spy a pocket of greenery. In Foot-loose in Tokyo, Jean Pearce writes, “Whenever you are out exploring, head for the trees. If there is anything of interest, it will be there,” and I couldn’t agree more. Fifty years ago, when the book was published, the roundabout route leading to the grove – “streets paved with stones, hardly more than paths” – would have taken you past small factories. Those workshops are gone, but the old residential area is still there – small condos and modest detached houses, a reminder of what many Tokyo neighborhoods looked like before it became corporate, slick, packaged, squeaky-clean and brash.

As Ms. Pearce had promised, the patch of green hides two Shinto shrines, the 400-year-old Irugi Jinja and a smaller site devoted to the god Inari. Irugi Jinja appears to enjoy steady popularity. There’s a steady trickle of visitors, never a crowd, but someone always arriving. Most are single women, which feels fitting for this hour, as if the shrine offers a moment of solitude in the rhythm of their day.

The religious grounds are also the location of an ancient shell mound. However, in the kawaii age, I suspect their main drawing card nowadays are the small stone statues – a veritable bestiary – scattered around the place: there’s a cat carrying a racoon, a dachshund, a monkey, and a bear and panda holding a bench. On the pop culture side, we have two Doraemon, one Pikachu, and even Mickey Mouse!

This shrine is especially popular during the Shichi-Go-San festival – a traditional celebration for children aged three, five, and seven. To attract young visitors and their families, the shrine has strategically deployed those stone characters throughout its rounds. Interestingly, Irugi Jinja seems to be affiliated with a gravestone manufacturer, and these statues are crafted from leftover stone used in headstone production.

Behind the shrine, a cluster of colorful traditional banners flutters in the breeze. Seamlessly blending faith and commerce, each one advertises a different kind of prayer you can pay for, from passing an entrance exam and getting rid of an illness to having a healthy baby, being successful in business, or even finding your soulmate.

Climbing down from the small hill on which Irugi Jinja sits, I turn to its next-door neighbor, a Buddhist temple. In contrast to the shrine’s colorful charm, Kannonji has a more austere presence: clean lines, a duotone palette of brown and white, and simpler, less cluttered, almost stark design. As is customary, it’s paired with a sprawling cemetery, now surrounded by houses and apartment buildings.

Here, the living and the dead coexist, trying not to step on each other’s toes – though it seems the developers have little interest in letting the dead rest in peace. Even here, construction is underway on a massive new development, one that seems poised to overshadow both the temple and the shrine. Now the ultimate destroyer has arrived – the modern excavator – carving into the earth with eerie finality.

Already in 1991, in the preface to Tokyo: City of Stories, Paul Waley – an urban geographer and keen observer of Asian cities – had noticed the clusters of high-rise developments and “pencil buildings” (“wobbly, windy structures that afford room only for hole-in-the-wall offices and apartments”) sprouting up everywhere. He was aware that Tokyo was being redrawn by the estate agents, “the new arbiters of the city’s face,” and declared that what was needed was less redevelopment, not more; “people who genuinely care more for the individuals (…) than they do for the business corporations.” Sadly, his advice has fallen on deaf ears.

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Dear readers, I’m sharing a photo report from my recent walk along the Yamanote Line—this stretch runs from Gotanda to Osaki. The first part is available to all, while the second is a small thank-you to my paid subscribers. The photos appear in the sequence I took them.

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Dear readers, apologies for going quiet lately. Today’s excuses include a work-related trip to Yamagata Prefecture, exam prep at my university, and last but not least, working on my new book (yippee!). I have to deliver the goods by the end of the year, so I’m rushing to beat the deadline.

Thanks for your patience, and back to my walks along the Yamanote Line.

Only a thousand meters separate Gotanda from Osaki, the next station on the Yamanote Line. This used to be prime farmland, once famous for its pumpkins. Today, that short stretch has been heavily redeveloped; a forest of high-rise condos now flanks both sides of the Meguro River. The entrances to some of these luxury towers – like La Cinq – resemble hotel lobbies, complete with sofas no one ever seems to sit on.

I reach a waterside square where the embankment slopes down almost to the river’s edge, and the promenade comes unusually close to the water—closer than regulations typically allow. It’s a peaceful, attractive neighborhood – another luxury afforded to its affluent residents.

The ward is promoting urban development along the Meguro River waterfront. Once foul-smelling and uninhabitable for aquatic life, the river has seen a revival thanks to improved sewer systems. Now, species like mullet, red goby, and sweetfish (ayu) have returned.

Suddenly, a spray of water shoots out of the Onari Bridge. Reclaimed from sewage by the Shiba Water Reclamation Center, this recycled water helps maintain river purity and also supplies buildings in Osaki, Shiodome, Shinagawa, Shinjuku, and other waterfront areas.

This wouldn’t be Tokyo, of course, without the familiar soundtrack of public works. Even here – this supposed quiet oasis of luxury – the thump and clang of construction pierces the calm. The culprit this time is Takenaka Corporation, one of Japan’s five major general contractors.

To say the area is “extensively developed” hardly does it justice. Acre after acre of prime Tokyo land has been transformed into a forest of high-rise condos. It feels like a city within the city, and remarkably, construction hasn’t stopped. Just beyond the Takenaka site, two more cranes are already at work.

I reach the next station in no time. Walking around Osaki New City, a typical mixed residential-commercial project, feels like stepping into one of those promotional videos where building companies advertise a new paradisiacal urban enclave. It appears both surreal and exhilarating. However, this is actually the oldest of the new buildings in the neighborhood. It’s also the key to understand how Tokyo has changed in the last 40 years.

By the second half of the 1980s, the Japan National Railways (JNR) were drowning in debt and plagued by inefficiency. In 1987, JNR was privatized, split into regional JR companies, and its real estate assets were partially handed over to new entities to manage and sell off unused or underutilized land. JR East, the new company serving the Tokyo area, inherited valuable land around stations, and instead of just operating trains, evolved into a real estate and infrastructure developer, unlocking huge profits by building commercial complexes around Tokyo.

One of those neglected districts was Osaki. At that time, factories and warehouses dominated the area, especially along the Meguro River, which was heavily polluted and used for industrial runoff. By any standard, Osaki was considered a fringe zone, neither rural nor urban-core. The Yamanote Line passed through, but Osaki was a minor stop, mostly serving local workers, and the station area had little pedestrian life or cultural appeal. On the upside, it had precious unused railyard and factory land. In other words, it was the perfect guinea pig and became one of the first Shin-toshin (new urban cores) or major JR redevelopment testbeds in the city.

It’s not a coincidence that Osaki New City was completed in 1987, the same year JR East was born. Its 1980s “international-style” architecture – functional, clean – is a bit dated by today’s standards, but in 1987 it helped putting Osaki on the map as a viable alternative to central business hubs like Shinjuku or Shinagawa.

The new district has developed rapidly since then, gradually assuming a futuristic appearance. In 1997, the City Planning Act and the Building Standards Act were partially revised, helping to establish new “high-rise residential attraction zones.” Two years later, Gate City Osaki was born – a glassy, modernist, more upscale complex conceived as a sort of live-work-play city within a city. The latest addition, in 2007, has been the ThinkPark Tower, at 140 meters the area’s tallest construction.

Unlike organic Tokyo neighborhoods like Naka-Meguro or Shimo-Kitazawa, Osaki is a deliberate product of urban planning – efficient, glassy, and somewhat generic. In the last 30 years, such redevelopments have mushroomed all over Tokyo. However, some question if such large investments are necessary or even advisable now, given that even Tokyo, whose population has continued to expand, is predicted to suffer a demographic fall by the mid-2030s.

As for Osaki New City, I’m curious to see for how long it’s going to last. Depending on the finishing material and technique, a reinforced concrete building’s lifespan can range from 68 to 150 years. However, its legal limit is 47 years. Above all, some of the office buildings completed during the “bubble economy” of the 1980s do not meet current earthquake resistance standards and must be rebuilt.

According to the most pessimistic scenarios and considering all the redevelopment projects going on around Tokyo, the city could become a petrified forest of ferroconcrete.

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Dear readers, many of you expressed their interest in the TOC Building that I covered in a recent post, so here are a few more photos. The first few pictures were taken on the 13th floor (cue Twilight Zone music), usually devoted to meetings, seminars, and classes.

The first part of this post is open to all of you (enjoy!), while the second part is a little thank-you gift to all my paid subscribers.

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Unfortunately, I couldn’t go all the way up to the roof.

Not two ghosts but yours truly and his walking partner, photographer extraordinaire Benjamin Parks.

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Dear readers, a couple of weeks ago I wrote about Daien-ji, one of my favorite Buddhist temples in Tokyo. What I didn’t mention (but it came up in the comments) is that next to Daien-ji there is a famous luxury hotel, Gajoen.

Unfortunately, the Hotel Gajoen Tokyo, which houses the splendid Hyakudan Kaidan (One-Hundred-Step Staircase) exhibition space, will temporarily close starting October 1 due to the expiration of its fixed-term building lease. The reopening schedule is currently undecided, so it’s unclear when or if the museum will resume operations.

Rising on a 30,000-square-metre plot along the Meguro River, the complex gleams with riverside façades clad in porcelain tiles of five subtle shades, shifting from grey to pale blue. The result is a skin that seems to shimmer and change with the light.

The hotel is nothing short of opulent. Weddings are its specialty, and the facilities are designed to impress: as many as twenty-four ceremonies can take place at once. Smaller salons accommodate fifty guests, while the grandest hall can hold a thousand. All-inclusive weddings have become a booming industry in Japan, and couples may choose between traditional tatami-lined chambers, sleek Western ballrooms, a Christian chapel, or even a Shinto shrine - whatever backdrop suits the occasion.

The hotel stands on the site of the former Gajoen, a legendary “Ryūgū-jō” or dragon-palace-like landmark dating back to the early 20th century, famed for its collection of more than 5,000 carved and painted panels depicting women in traditional scenes.

About half of those artworks, along with sculptures and antiques, have been restored and reinstalled here. Many are arranged in a 200-metre ground-floor gallery that doubles as a museum corridor. One side opens to views of a manicured garden, where a stream winds in and out beneath the glass.

The gallery leads into a soaring four-story atrium, where a full-scale traditional wooden house has been reconstructed as a restaurant, complete with thatched roof, bamboo plantings, and a stone garden. Just outside, couples descend a sweeping staircase, Hollywood-style, as guests capture the moment on video before moving on to a wooden bridge set against a dramatic waterfall backdrop. For all its showmanship, the complex avoids gaudiness thanks to the precision and harmony of its detailing, which lend the whole enterprise a sense of refined spectacle.

The One-Hundred-Step Staircase itself - built in 1935 and designated a Tangible Cultural Property - is a rare architectural gem.

In a city that reinvents itself with relentless rhythm, the closure of the Hyakudan Kaidan is not just the end of an exhibition space. It’s the folding of a cultural palimpsest, a place where Showa-era opulence met contemporary curation in a rare architectural embrace.

Built in 1935, the staircase connects seven banquet rooms, each lavishly adorned with seasonal motifs, lacquered panels, and carved transoms.

I really hope this place will reopen someday. In Tokyo, where memory often yields to momentum, the Hyakudan Kaidan stood as a rare vertical archive. It resisted the flattening of history, inviting visitors to climb not just stairs, but eras. Its closure is a reminder that even tangible cultural properties are subject to the same fragility as the stories they house.

In the end, architecture is not just about preservation. It’s about transmission.

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Gotanda yesterday and today.

Gotanda is one of those stations that most people breeze through without a second thought – more a junction than a destination. Even now, well into the 21^st century, this neighborhood is the epitome of architectural anonymity. But back in 1982, it was having a bit of a moment. Sony, the undisputed rockstar of global electronics at the time, had its headquarters here, and the area enjoyed a mini boom. Office towers went up, karaoke bars multiplied, capsule hotels appeared – it was Gotanda’s shot at the big time. And then… time sort of stopped.

In Tokyo’s corporate world, prestige is everything. Companies flock to neighborhoods with the right cachet, places that look good on a business card. Look at what’s happening in Shibuya. Somewhere along the line, Gotanda fell off the “cool” map, and the investment dollars went elsewhere. Sony itself decamped to Shinagawa in 2006, leaving behind only a tech center like a polite goodbye note.

Still, there’s a certain retro charm to Gotanda’s time-warped business district, dotted with manufacturing firms and surprisingly leafy residential pockets. It’s got grit, it’s got history, and there’s always the Meguro River’s comforting presence.

The 80s were also a time when Gotanda became well known in Tokyo for its concentration of love hotels, adult video shops, and nightlife businesses. This area was not originally a red-light district like Yoshiwara or Kabukichō. Instead, it grew as a transport hub along the Yamanote Line, with factories, office buildings, and modest commercial activity. But its location – convenient to Shinjuku, Shinagawa, and central Tokyo – made it attractive for discreet nightlife businesses.

The love hotel boom coincided with rapid urbanization and small-space living. Gotanda, with relatively affordable real estate compared to Shinjuku or Shibuya, became a hotspot for such establishments. By the late 1970s, guidebooks and tabloid-style magazines began publishing maps of love hotel districts, and Gotanda consistently had its own section.

With the growth of the AV (adult video) industry, Gotanda became a well-known center not only for consumption (video rental shops, sex-related businesses) but also for parts of production and distribution. This reputation was reinforced by the clustering effect: once a neighborhood became associated with such businesses, others followed.

Today, redevelopment has softened some of these edges. Office towers and chain hotels dominate the station’s east side, while the west side has pockets of sleek restaurants and startups. Yet Gotanda’s lingering reputation as one of Tokyo’s “love hotel towns” still endures, though it’s not as flashy as Shibuya’s Dogenzaka or Ikebukuro’s backstreets. In this sense, it sits at the intersection of transportation convenience, urban redevelopment, and the less “official” sides of city life.

I make a beeline for the TOC Building, said to be one of Gotanda’s best spots. The name stands for Tokyo Oroshiuri Center – oroshiuri meaning wholesale. Completed in 1970, the building was developed by Hoshi Pharmaceutical, a company whose main claim to fame is its Hoshi gastrointestinal medicine, popularly known across as “Hoshi’s Red Can.” Backed by government support, the TOC was part of an effort to ease commercial congestion in the Nihonbashi district.

At its peak, the TOC Building buzzed with the energy of some 7,700 workers spread across offices for nearly 380 companies. The basement alone was a mini city, packed with eateries offering every kind of cuisine. There was also a post office, a medical clinic, and even a bank – all the essentials for an entire workday without ever stepping outside. A massive parking garage could accommodate up to 1,000 cars.

The building was a true commercial hub, with each floor dedicated to a specific category of goods: women’s ready-to-wear, menswear, accessories, fabrics, lingerie, smoking paraphernalia, and glittering displays of gold and silver jewelry. Though these were primarily wholesale showrooms, many vendors were happy to sell directly to walk-in customers, making the TOC something of a hidden treasure trove for bargain hunters.

But the moment I step inside, it’s clear something’s off. The building’s glory days are long behind it. In the 54 years since it opened, the TOC has lost much of its former shine. A relic of the Showa era, it doesn’t just look gray – it feels gray. Many of the restaurants and shops have shuttered, and those that remain are more about practicality than pizzazz. Empty spaces abound, and 閉店 (closing down) signs are everywhere. SALE SALE SALE. WE ARE CLOSING. The message couldn’t be louder.

And yet – I love this place. Wandering its corridors, I notice that each floor has its own personality: different color schemes, motifs, and striping patterns. You can almost picture how dazzling it must have been in the 1970s, bustling with buyers and merchandise. On the 12th floor alone, there are 60 retail spaces, but only about ten are still occupied. Before long, it feels like you are on the set of The Shining or Dawn of the Dead – minus the zombies.

Unfortunately, the roof is now off-limits. Too bad. It used to feature a strange coupling: a golf-driving range and a Shinto shrine. From there, you could also glimpse the distant hills where some of Tokyo’s most exclusive estates are nestled, including the neighborhood once home to the Shoda family—former Empress Michiko’s own.

As a PS, the photo above gives me the chance to mention the kumosuke. Originally, this term referred to itinerant laborers - porters, palanquin bearers, or ferrymen - who operated along highways and post stations during the Edo period. These workers were often unregulated or moguri (unofficial), and some gained a reputation for predatory behavior, including overcharging travelers, extortion, or even theft.

The nickname kumosuke may derive from their tendency to lurk like spiders, waiting to trap vulnerable customers.

One notorious tactic they used was to look at the customer’s feet: if a traveler’s sandals were worn out, signaling they couldn’t walk further, the kumosuke would jack up the price, knowing the customer had no choice.

This practice gave rise to the idiom “ashimoto o miru” 足元を見る, now used to describe taking advantage of someone’s weakness.

In more recent times, kumosuke became a derogatory term for unscrupulous taxi drivers who overcharge or mistreat passengers. The term has sparked legal and social backlash, especially when used in public discourse. For example, a comedian and a judge both faced criticism for using it to describe taxi drivers.

To reach Gotanda, the next station, I opt to follow the Meguro River. This is a proper river, not like the poor Shibuya. Wide, long, rather self-satisfied. It also has lots of cherry blossom trees.

After inspecting the entrance of the Hotel Meguro Emperor – REST (3hours) 5,800 yen, STAY (9:00 pm ~ 3:00 pm) 9,800 – I set off on my southward march. On the opposite bank, a group of road workers on their lunch break hoist a junior coworker over the rail, pretending to toss him into the river. Everyone’s laughing – until they notice me watching. Then they quickly pull him back.

From the end of the Edo period to the early Meiji period (circa 1850s-1870s), waterwheels were installed along the Meguro for flour milling and rice polishing, and by the mid-Meiji period they had begun to be used for industrial purposes such as tobacco production and drug refining, turning these districts into an industrial area.

The photo above, taken from a bridge in the late 1950s, captures people at work, guiding colorful ribbons of fabric as they drift and sway in the river’s clear waters.

Yūzen-nagashi (友禅流し) was a traditional rinsing process of dyed fabrics, especially in the production of Yūzen-zome (友禅染め), a style of intricate, hand-painted kimono dyeing that originated in Kyoto. After dyeing, fabrics were rinsed in clean, flowing river water to fix the colors and remove excess dye. Yūzen means “rinsing” or "washing."

Artisans would stretch long bolts of silk across the current, creating a beautiful scene of brightly colored fabrics drifting in the water. This practice is now rare due to environmental concerns and urbanization, though it's sometimes reenacted for festivals or demonstrations.

The 1950s were a relatively tranquil time, before Tokyo was swept up in the postwar surge of economic growth and urbanization. Back then, the Meguro River ran clear, and its waters served as a convenient place to wash away the paste used in Yuzen dyeing.

Several shops clustered around Ōhashi Bridge and Sakura Bridge, each with stone steps that led directly down to the water. Those steps, however, vanished during a river improvement project.

This particular stretch between Meguro and Gotanda is now lined with high-rise condominiums, each as expensive as the next, I have no doubt. For many years, Tokyo resisted building upward, unlike many Western cities, instead expanding horizontally across the plains. That changed dramatically in 1963, when Japan revised its Building Standard Law and abolished the long-standing 31-meter height limit. Until then, the city’s low-rise architecture reflected a legacy of fire safety concerns and seismic caution. But with the introduction of floor-area ratio (FAR) regulations, developers were suddenly empowered to build vertically.

The Kasumigaseki Building, completed in 1968, rose to 147 meters and became Tokyo’s first modern skyscraper. West Shinjuku was the first district to embrace this new verticality, rapidly transforming from a quiet neighborhood into a forest of high-rises. Across town, Roppongi evolved from a low-slung nightlife enclave into a soaring hub of art, commerce, and luxury living, anchored by mega-developments like Roppongi Hills and Tokyo Midtown. These vertical cities – dense, multilayered and depressingly dull – are sprouting everywhere, gradually replacing Tokyo’s uniquely quirky character with a deadening sameness.

Dear readers, it’s still unbearably hot out there, but before you burn all your money on beer and booze, please remember that it’s not too late to support Tokyo Calling on the cheap.

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Leaving Meguro Station, you only need to walk a few meters to realize that you are on the verge of a cliff. Indeed, the whole region between Meguro and Osaki, two stops down the line, is defined by the gently undulating terrain shaped by the Meguro River as it carves through the Musashino Plateau, with its contours visible along both banks.

Meguro’s landscape, now mostly leveled by modern development, no longer reveals its once-prominent slopes. Yet Hiroshige’s woodblock prints recall a verdant land of hilltops where Tokugawa lords pursued falconry and townspeople once gazed freely at Mount Fuji.

During the Edo period, Meguro and Osaki were farming villages on the outskirts of Edo, known for their scenic beauty and popular as locations for the villas of feudal lords. For the residents of Edo, the area was associated with religious devotion at Meguro Fudoson, whose temple grounds bustled with lively crowds, making it a popular day-trip destination.

British diplomat, writer, and Japan enthusiast A. B. Mitford was arguably one of the first Westerners to visit this area. He served as a diplomatic secretary at the British legation in Edo in the 1860s during the final years of the Tokugawa shogunate. In 1871 he published Tales of Old Japan, one of the earliest English-language books to introduce Japanese culture to the West with some degree of sympathy and understanding.

Regarding Meguro, Mitford wrote: “As we draw near to Meguro, the scenery, becoming more and more rustic, increases in beauty... Close at our feet runs a stream of pure water in which a group of countrymen are watching the vegetables which they will presently shoulder and carry off to sell by auction in the suburbs of Yedo [Edo].”

Although it has seen heavy gentrification, Meguro still retains a touch of charming, rough eccentricity. One of the streets that descends from the JR station to the Meguro River is Gonnosuke-zaka, a 400-meter slope flanked by a patchwork of small eateries of varying quality.

What makes this street particularly interesting is its covered arcade, a rare sight in Tokyo. But unlike the grand arcades of Europe, with their vaulted ceilings and ornate stonework, this one is distinctly utilitarian – a low tin roof patched in places, supported by rickety steel poles. The effect is more ad hoc than architectural, evoking a kind of scrappy charm that feels closer to a market alley or a hastily thrown-together shelter than a designed public space. Still, there’s something oddly inviting about it, especially at night, when the glow of lanterns and the scent of grilled food spill into the arcade. Or it may just mean that I’ve lived in Japan for too long.

Gonnosuke-zaka - literally “Gonnosuke Slope” - was opened toward the end of the 17th century and carries a tragic legacy. It takes its name from Suganuma Gonnosuke, a local figure who was ultimately executed by the shogunate.

The reasons for his fate are clouded by time and conflicting stories. One version holds that Gonnosuke, moved by the plight of impoverished peasants crushed under the weight of high taxes, dared to petition the authorities for relief – a bold act in an era when even speaking out could cost you your life. Another version paints him as a practical and compassionate man: seeing laborers and farmers struggle up another slope – the brutally steep Gyonin-zaka – with heavy loads, he cut a gentler slope – this one – without seeking permission from the powers above.

Whatever the truth, his fate was sealed. Yet the people he tried to help did not forget. Out of gratitude, they named the new slope after him, a small but lasting tribute carved into the very geography of the neighborhood.

Of course, I have to see the killer slope that may have indirectly led to Gonnosuke’s untimely death. It’s only 150 meters long, but with an average gradient of about 15.6%. it’s no joke. Out of shape, I huff and sweat my way to the top – more by will than muscle.

Down Gyonin-zaka again until I reach Daien-ji. In the Edo period, this slope was a key point not only for transporting the local agricultural products to Edo but for the pilgrimages to the Meguro-area temples and shrines as well (gyonin means pilgrim), and Daien-ji is the best of the lot. This small but striking temple has a serene, almost secretive atmosphere that belies its heavy place in the city’s history. It’s compact to say the least, but it leaves a strong impression nonetheless.

I seemingly spend hours in silent contemplation of the hauntingly expressive 500 rakan (disciples of Buddha) statues, rows and rows of them, taking up the left side of the temple grounds. Small and tightly packed, each one unique, carved with remarkable individuality. Some are laughing, some solemn, others deep in meditation, each one has its own personality, posture, and facial expression. Together, they form a dense, almost cinematic crowd that draws you in. Their weathered moss-covered stone surfaces add to the unique mystique of the temple.

The collection serves not only as a tribute to spiritual enlightenment but also as a memorial: it was here that the Great Fire of Meiwa began on February 29, 1772. Sparked by a vagrant monk named Masuhide, the fire swept through the city, scorching a path 24 kilometers long and 4 kilometers wide. It killed 15,000 people, destroyed Nihonbashi, and reached as far as Ueno whose station today is located at the opposite end of Meguro. The blaze would go down as one of Edo’s three great fires, and though the monk acted alone, Daien-ji was held responsible and was forbidden from rebuilding for over 70 years.

Daien-ji also touches another infamous story: that of Yaoya Oshichi. Nearly a century before the Meiwa fire, the Great Fire of Tenna in 1683 displaced a greengrocer’s family. They took shelter at a temple, where their daughter, Oshichi, fell in love with a boy named Kichizo. Eventually the family moved back to their rebuilt house. But Oshichi, desperate to see Kichizo again, did the unthinkable: she set it afire again, hoping it would send her back to him. It did not. Instead, she was burned at the stake, just 16 years old.

Kichizo is believed to have become the monk Seiun, whose grave is at Daien-ji. Oshichi’s, sadly, lies elsewhere. But in 1955, someone with a tender heart placed a joint memorial for them on these grounds – a final attempt to reunite them after death.

There’s something about Daien-ji that gets under your skin. It’s not grand, or ornate. But it holds stories – layers of them – and they settle around you like the incense smoke drifting from its small altar. Life goes on as usual just beyond the temple walls, but here on Gyonin-zaka, time slows down. You feel the centuries pressing in gently, like a hand on your shoulder.

Changing subject, during the Edo period, it wasn’t uncommon to find brothels nestled near temples. After all, nothing says “spiritual enlightenment” like convenient zoning. This curious bit of urban planning might raise modern eyebrows, but in those days a visit to the temple could be followed by a different kind of “soul searching.” Places like Yoshiwara, the famed licensed pleasure district, weren’t far from religious sites, blending piety and pleasure in a way that Edo-period pragmatists could very well justify. Think about it: if you are going to reflect on life’s fleeting nature, why not do it with a little company?

Present-day Meguro doesn’t have brothels – as far as I know – but when I reach the Meguro River I’m struck by a different kind of pleasure dome. Hotel Meguro Emperor is hard to miss – its fairy tale façade, complete with turrets and towers, stands out like a poor copy of the Cinderella Castle at Disneyland. Such kitschy temples to kinkiness are usually to be found off ramps and along rice paddies in the deep country. Yet, this one has been dropped straight into the Tokyo skyline.

Completed in 1973, it used to be the city’s most famous love hotel. It predates the brief but wild era of the economic bubble by more than ten years, but during its heyday it perfectly represented the Tokyoites love for extravagance, novelty, and playful escapism wrapped in kitsch opulence.

The hotel featured 30 rooms with unique amenities like gondolas, playground slides, and various types of beds. Inside, each room was uniquely designed with theatrical flair. One simulated a gentle rainstorm. Another featured a $14,000 bed that ascended dramatically within a mirrored cylinder. The wonders of electronics were pushed to imaginative extremes: furniture, lighting, and sound systems responded with a flourish to the touch of a button.

During its peak, the Meguro Emperor reportedly earned around 40 million yen per month. However, as tastes changed, it lost many of its fans. Its current version, façade aside, is quite different. Many of its old boudoirs now bear an uncanny resemblance to my grandparents’ bedroom. Like many other love hotels, it has adapted by allowing inside solo travelers and groups of friends, particularly women. For instance, the hotel offers a Girls' Night Plan where groups of three to six women can stay in a maisonette-style suite from 7:00 p.m. to 12:00 p.m. the next day.

My rates are much cheaper than the Meguro Emperor!

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Dear readers, you can read part 1 here.

Yoshida Shigeru, who was prime minister between May 1946 and May 1947 and then in 1948-1954, took up residence here in March 1947, during his first term. He had previously been living in the Prime Minister's Residence in Nagatachō, but because he was serving concurrently as Foreign Minister, Yoshida could also make use of this home as the Foreign Minister's Residence. However, this arrangement came to an end after only two months with the resignation of the cabinet in May of the same year.

Yoshida returned to power a year and a half later, with the formation of his second cabinet in October 1948. From then until his resignation, this residence served a renewed role as the Prime Minister's Residence, becoming a key site of political and diplomatic activity for a total of seven years during Japan's postwar reconstruction.

Ordinarily, prime ministers conduct public duties in the official office and reside in the official residence. However, Yoshida blurred this distinction, using what came to be known as the Meguro Residence not only as his home but also as a working space where he held high-level policy meetings. Weekday morning gatherings were attended by the Chief Cabinet Secretary, ministers, senior bureaucrats, and close aides, who huddled with Yoshida for vigorous discussions of matters of state.

When discussions would reach an impasse, Yoshida was known to retreat into the expansive garden and stroll across the lawn in quiet contemplation.

After finishing his official duties on the evening of September 8, 1951, Yoshida acquired two dogs. Both were Cairn Terrier, one of the oldest breeds from Scotland that is known for its hunting ability. He gave them the names San and Fran in tribute to the Treaty of San Francisco, which had been signed on that very day. Japan regained its sovereignty when the treaty came into effect on April 28, 1952.

Yoshida also kept other Cairn Terriers, including the first of several known as Cisco. One photograph captures Yoshida and his family relaxing with Cisco in the Prince's Sitting Room, which was one of the rooms used by the Prime Minister for official business.

And now, as promised, let’s take a walk around the Japanese-style garden.

I hope you enjoyed this visit to one of Tokyo’s architectural jewels.

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Dear readers, summer in Tokyo gets worse every year, and every year it slows me down (that’s the best excuse I can find for my recent silence). But you have to leave home sometimes, which means finding something interesting to do indoors. Luckily, Tokyo doesn’t lack in museums, so a few weeks ago the wife and I headed to Meguro - the latest stop in my walk along the Yamanote Line - to visit the Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum.

Today’s post is also the first in a new subseries devoted to interesting architecture around the Yamanote.

Located in Shirokanedai, a posh neighborhood east of Meguro Station, the museum is housed in the former residence of Prince Asaka, a stunning Art Deco building completed in 1933. It’s surrounded by beautifully landscaped Japanese and Western-style gardens, which give the museum its name - Teien meaning “garden.”

Let’s take a step back. Paris in the 1920s, when Prince Asaka and Princess Nobuko resided in the city, pulsed with the energy of a capital that had fully recovered from the First World War. This era was known as Les Années folles (the Crazy Years), a vibrant period marked by rapid industrial expansion, the blossoming of urban culture, and significant strides in women's social advancement.

In July 1925, the couple visited the Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes, known around the world as the Art Deco Exposition. Enthralled by the displays of cutting-edge design, they resolved to incorporate the style into their new residence in Japan. The project architect, Gondo Yõkichi of the Imperial Household Ministry's Construction Bureau, also attended the exposition and absorbed many lessons of Art Deco design.

Upon returning to Japan, the couple worked closely with Gondo, often discussing plans for the new residence late into the night. Princess Nobuko took an active role, sketching interior decorations and contributing to the production of radiator covers adorned with floral motifs.

Of all the rooms in the Prince Asaka Residence, the Salon and the adjoining Great Dining Hall most embody the true chic of Art Deco design. Every visible element of this room is crafted as a work of art, from the chandelier designed by Réne Lalique to the silver-frost etched glass by Max Ingrand set in the doors and and the semi-circular decorative tympana above the doors by Raymond Subes. The geometric patterns of curves and straight lines invite visitors into the world of Art Deco.

During the time the residence served as a state guest house. Records show that the Salon was used to welcome distinguished guests from around the world.

The botanical-themed wall relief was designed by Ivan-Léon Alexandre Blanchot. During the residence's construction, a concrete relief with this design was sent from France, but it cracked during transit. Artisans in Japan re-cast it in plaster and finished it with a silvery grey paint.

While in Paris, Princess Nobuko began taking watercolor lessons under the tutelage of Ivan-Léon Alexandre Blanchot, a sculptor who would later contribute the marble relief in the Great Hall and wall relief in the Great Dining Room of the couple's Tokyo residence. Having long nurtured a love for painting, the princess found inspiration in the fresh bouquets-roses, carnations, and gladioli-that arrived weekly at their apartment.

In the second part, I’ll take you outside for a walk around the gorgeous Japanese-style garden.

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Dear readers, while researching my Yamanote Line Walk project, I went hunting for old photographs of Tokyo and struck gold at my university library: a treasure trove of vintage photo books. The many old (mostly black-and-white) images you’ll see in my upcoming posts come from these wonderful sources.

I don’t have the time to provide the meticulous source details that an academic researcher—or Kjeld Duits—might include, so I hope you’ll simply enjoy them as a window into Tokyo’s past.

Also, please remember that it’s not too late to support Tokyo Calling on the cheap.

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① “Shibuya in History” ② “History of Tokyo, Zone 1: Chiyoda Ward, Minato Ward, Shinjuku Ward, Bunkyo Ward”

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Dear readers, I know it’s hot, but before you burn all your money on beer and booze, please remember that it’s not too late to support Tokyo Calling on the cheap.

If you like what I do, don’t forget the special 80% discount on annual paid subscriptions.

$30 → $6 (see link above)

Any kind of support is truly appreciated—whether it’s liking, commenting, sharing, or restaking. Every bit helps spread the word and makes Tokyo Calling more visible. Thank you.

Beer played a central role in shaping Ebisu’s identity. In the mid-1800s, this was little more than a farming village on the fringes of Tokyo. But the nearby irrigation channel offered water ideal for brewing, prompting the establishment of the original brewery that would put Ebisu on the map.

Though the factory relocated to Chiba in 1988, the Sapporo Beer Headquarters and a museum remain, preserving the area's boozy legacy. One local, who has lived near the station his entire life, recalls the golden age of hops and barley: “At Kakezuka Elementary, on the north side, we could smell the beer from the factory every day,” he says. “It was strongest in summer. In later years, always looked forward to the annual factory opening—free drinks, souvenirs… what more could you want?”

Four high-rise condos tower over Robuchon’s restaurant in the background, with several taxis idling out front, waiting for their customers. Around here, people seem to lack both the patience for public transport and the need to count their taxi fares.

But I keep walking. An overpass lifts me over the tangle of rail tracks, and five minutes later I arrive at one of Tokyo’s quirks: a giant red ball lodged in a wedge-shaped black building. That’s the Hinomaru Driving School whose parent company also owns – surprise surprise – Hinomaru Kotsu, one of Tokyo’s major taxi and limousine operators.

Hinomaru is one way to say “sun” in Japanese – it literally means “red circle.” It’s also what the Japanese flag is commonly called, a nod to the bold red disc shining in the center of a pure white field. But the term pops up elsewhere, too. A Hinomaru bento is a very basic, poor-man boxed lunch: just a single umeboshi (pickled plum) on a bed of white rice. A red dot in a sea of white. Fittingly austere. Fitting, too, for the often-grueling life of Tokyo’s taxi drivers.

In 2019 I visited one of Hinomaru’s four depots on assignment for my magazine. The company had recently made headlines for actively recruiting foreign drivers. As Otsu Kazumi, head of personnel, explained, they saw foreigners as a smart investment as they would come handy in chauffeuring the growing influx of overseas tourists. In July 2017, there were only five non-Japanese drivers. Two years later, that number had climbed to 37, representing 22 different countries.

An American driver I spoke to admitted he was having second thoughts. “Like about 80% of drivers, I do kakujitsu kinmu – I work every other day,” he said. “However, a workday here lasts 19 to21 hours. We clock in at 7:30 a.m. for roll call and must return by 4:30 a.m. the next day.”

The real issue, though, was pay. “We’re on commission,” he said. “We get between 52% and 62% of what we bring in. Beginners make as little as 180-190,000 yen a month, and even experienced drivers average around 230,000 yen. During the job interview, I was told I’d be making 250,000 to 300,000 yen, guaranteed. Honestly, I feel like I got suckered.”

As it often happens around the Yamanote Line, the railway divides Tokyo in two very different environments. Between Ebisu and Meguro, for instance, the outer side is the commercial district, with lots of affordable shops and restaurants, while the inner side is a zone of quiet affluence, where the signs of wealth are understated but absolute.

Ebisu and Kami-Osaki are avidly sought by upper-class residents as they combine a central location and access to upscale retail and fine dining with a refined atmosphere, discretion and privacy.

Ebisu is the home of affluent singles, power couples, foreign executives, and creative professionals who live in elegant tower condos like The Parkhouse Ebisu and luxury low-rise apartments. Modern 2-bedroom apartments in new luxury towers range from 700,000–1.5 million yen a month.

However, even the Ebisu rampant tribe of young, gym-toned upwardly mobile creatives and tech-world climbers who like to gather over third-wave coffee and natural wine can only dream of living in Kami-Osaki. Here’s where people who already have everything choose to live. Wealthy Japanese families, corporate executives, some patrician households: this cloistered elite – Tokyo’s “whispering aristocracy” – has low visibility but high prestige. In a world increasingly ruled by the showy and tacky rich, Kami-Osaki is one of those areas where wealth does not roar. It glides in leather-soled silence behind wrought-iron or black metal gates, high hedges and stone walls.

No high-street commercial zones around here. Instead: embassies, exclusive schools, historical estates. Detached homes can exceed 2 billion yen, and rentals often aren't even publicly listed – handled via off-market private agents.

Strolling around these extremely quiet and discreet streets, I feel like I’ve fallen into a wormhole and been transported to a parallel universe. Grand houses – real mansions, not the run-of-the-mill Japanese manshon – dispose themselves along a golden road. Gravel drives and ironwork gates on which CCTV cameras replace heraldic beasts. Mercedes, BMWs and Audis are everywhere. One of them slips silently past me along a sakura-lined hill. You won’t find this neighborhood on tourist maps. That’s exactly why old money lives here.

On my way to the station, I end up walking behind three boys heading home from school. (Not a stalking – they just happen to go the same way). They look like fifth graders, still in elementary school, still wearing those regulation bright yellow hats that now sit awkwardly on their ten-year-old frames. Their randoseru – the stiff backpacks that once looked enormous and heavy on their tiny shoulders – have somehow shrunk, now resembling miniature bags. They have clearly outgrown the markers of early childhood and are inching toward the real uniforms of junior high, and everything those uniforms imply. Good luck, boys.

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Dear readers, here are a few more pics for all the train voyeurs and people watchers out there. Enjoy. And if you want more, part 1 is here.

It wouldn’t be a Tokyo train without the sleepers.

I hope you enjoyed this collection.

Also, remember that it’s not too late to support Tokyo Calling on the cheap.

If you like what I do, don’t forget the special 80% discount on annual paid subscriptions.

$30 → $6 (see link above)

Any kind of support is truly appreciated—whether it’s liking, commenting, sharing, or restaking. Every bit helps spread the word and makes Tokyo Calling more visible."

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A walkway to heaven. Ebisu embodies the polished, entitled spirit of western Tokyo’s residents – people with delicate sensibilities, deep pockets, and sophisticated tastes – so it makes perfect sense to approach its most prominent shopping and cultural complex through a convenient, weather-protected, 400-meter-long moving walkway.

Being of more plebeian stock, I prefer to hurry on the walkway’s fast lane. Every time I come here, I make a game of seeing how many people I can overtake. Sort of an analog video game. The Skywalk, meanwhile, is plastered with ads. Sapporo Beer, naturally.

If you want to replicate my experience, please watch this short video.

I used to take this walk often back when I worked in Shibuya. Ebisu is a great place for watching movies, and has the wonderful Tokyo Photographic Art Museum.

When you finally reach the end of the walkway, Yebisu Garden Place (the ‘Y’ is not a mistake, and it’s soundless… don’t ask), you know you are not in Shibuya anymore: open spaces, wide avenues, and lots of trees – at least by Tokyo standards.

They say that in Japan, the wealthy and privileged prefer not to show off. Modesty and humility are prized virtues, and success or wealth is often quietly downplayed to preserve social harmony. Ebisu begs to be a little different.

A gently sloped promenade leads to a spacious central plaza crowned by a sweeping glass arch. Dominating the scene is Château Restaurant Joël Robuchon, a replica of a Louis XVI French château housing three Michelin-starred restaurants (see the photo at the top). Curiously, I’ve never seen a soul venture inside the faux-château. Perhaps even the clientele here observe their own brand of modesty.

Yebisu Garden Place is also famous for its winter illumination, when about 100,000 golden LED lights transform the central square. At its heart hangs a Baccarat crystal chandelier composed of 8,500 crystals and 250 lights, whose creation required the work of 13 Meilleur Ouvrier de France. Measuring five meters tall and three meters wide, it ranks among the largest chandeliers in the world. As always, modesty and restraint come first.

For a place called Garden Place, this glorified shopping mall has very little flowers to show. So where have all the flowers gone? They are out there, somewhere, but (almost) nobody knows. You see, those rich people love nature, but they don’t want to share it with us common mortals. Therefore, someone with a little business acumen came up with the idea of opening a secret, members-only garden: Ebisu Flower Park. To gain access to this garden of delights you will have to fork out 88,000 yen. To be clear, this is just the membership fee.

Not really a garden, actually, since it’s housed inside a building in an undisclosed place. But that’s beside the point. What’s important is that the privileged few (and their lucky friends: every member can bring three guests) get exclusive access to ever-different, seasonal manicured flower displays, and enjoy a few overpriced cocktails at the house bar.

Ultimately, the greatest value might lie in the sense of exclusivity it offers. The experience isn’t just about admiring the flowers — it’s about being seen among them. Instead of jostling through crowds, visitors purchase a seamless, carefully crafted moment. In addition to the meticulously maintained floral displays expected of a luxury garden, the staff are trained to help guests capture flawless photos, showcasing both the blooms and the guests themselves. These refined touches are what distinguish the Park and its patrons from ordinary visitors wandering through more traditional, public gardens.

And to think that Ebisu had much humbler origins. Yebisu Garden Place was once the site of the Nippon Beer Brewery, the predecessor of Sapporo Beer, and the name of both the station and the district – minus a Y – come from one of Japan’s oldest beer brands. The station itself started in 1901 as a freight-only station for shipping beer. The passenger service began in 1906 (the same year when the Japanese Railway was nationalized) but it was mainly used by the factory employees to commute to work. Finally, Ebisu Station was incorporated into the Yamanote Line in 1909.

While it's not unusual for company names to evolve into place names – such as Toyota in Aichi Prefecture or Hitachi in Ibaraki – it’s far rarer for a product name to become a station name, and eventually a place name. One recent exception can be found in Chiba Prefecture, where a hair care company acquired the naming rights to a station.

Back in 2006, Choshi Electric Railway was circling the drain. Passenger numbers were down, the president had just been busted for embezzlement, and the company couldn’t even afford its year-end train inspections. Shutdown loomed.

Then, salvation came from an unlikely source: rice crackers.

A desperate employee posted an appeal on the company website: “Please buy nure senbei to keep the trains running.” The internet did not disappoint. The message went viral, orders flooded in, and the humble “wet” rice cracker – soft and soy-soaked – became a national cause. Choshi Electric not only covered its repair costs, it stumbled into a new business model. Today, it earns more from senbei than from tickets.

Next stop: naming rights. The company began auctioning off station names, bringing in up to 2 million yen per deal. Among the buyers was Mesocare+, a haircare brand with a sense of humor. In 2015, they replaced a few kanji and rechristened Kasagami-Kurohae Station to Kaminoke Kurohae – roughly, “Hair Grows Black.” The name was part marketing stunt, part linguistic acrobatics, and very on-brand for a railway that runs on snacks, puns, and sheer grit.

Let’s finish this first half of the walk with a few random pictures I took while exploring the backstreets and the gritty area near the rail tracks.

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Dear readers, one of the pleasures of riding trains is watching the people around you. It’s almost as good as reading, which I usually do. Here are a few photos of people riding the Yamanote Line - a good opportunity to compare old and new habits.

This photo was taken around 1947, at Ueno Station. On the right-hand side, you can make out the words “YAMANOTE LINE” written on the train window.

Let’s compare the two cars:
The one on the left has broken windows, and it’s so overcrowded that passengers are crammed into the space between cars. The war has only recently ended, and taking public transportation is still a grueling experience.

However, the car on the right tells a different story. Its windows are clean, and there’s ample space inside. This car is reserved for members of the occupying forces.

Applying fake eyelashes on the train, a relatively recent custom. As noted in an earlier post, applying makeup, etc. on the train is considered bad manners by 6.8% of train riders - down from 10.2%.

Taking wanchan (puppy) for a ride, long before the pet boom. I don’t think today you would be allowed to strap your dog to your back.

High school boy and his puppy girl.

Young family at Uguisudani Station.

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Here’s a second batch of photos from Jeremie Souteyrat’s book Tokyo no ie (Tokyo houses).

The book also includes an interesting text by world-famous architect Kuma Kengo (link to my interview. Here are a few excerpts.

Den’enchofu

I come from Okurayama, a suburban community located between Yokohama and Tokyo. From the time I was four years old, I took the train from there to the outskirts of Tokyo, where I attended nursery school in Den’enchofu. The trip only took some 15 minutes, yet at each station where the train stopped were all kinds of houses in which my schoolmates lived and where I often visited. So even from that tender age, I was able to observe many sorts of residencies, and I was astonished to note so many different building styles. At that time, the end of the 50s, there were still people living on small farms, but also very rich families who could afford to build quite modern-style homes. I well remember how I pondered a great deal over such broad diversity.

Den’enchofu is a district of very large private residencies. But from a young age I disliked this sort of luxury, the very large homes of the new rich. But there were also architect’s houses, and these suited me far better. They weren't overstated and I found them to be very smart in terms of their design. These scarcely belonged to well-known architects such as Tange or Isozaki later became, but nevertheless, I found they possessed a true sort of richness. They weren't especially large, but I told myself that they contained true luxury. I wanted to live in a house like that myself and that was why from an early age I made up my mind to become an architect.

Tokyo Houses

Owing to the particular quality of Tokyo and, above all, the scarcity of space, houses in this city can seldom be designed as completely open. Moreover, even their surrounding gardens are likely to be small in size. The houses aren't expansive, but neither can they afford to be closed, and in my opinion, it is this “in-between” quality that best characterizes Tokyo: open and closed at one and the same time. It is this ambiguous quality that I search for when designing a house. And this double nature is probably specific to Tokyo. When you design a house, the result will always be either “open” or “closed” toward the city and its surroundings. Usually, it has to be one or the other, but Tokyo is quite ambiguous in this regard.

I normally try to use local materials. In Tokyo, however, I feel a need to employ more ambiguous materials, those that are able to encompass more than one meaning. Plastics, for example, are artificial, but at the same time they possess a suppleness that is almost organic. Thus, they are materials that are open and closed at the same time. In the same way, in my Steel House (2007) I used a material that is usually qualified as industrial, but I tried to increase its relative flexibility. I always choose materials that have a built-in sense of double play.

A good relationship between a house and its surroundings is in itself a matter of ambiguity. You must take the urban environment into account. If you live in the country, then you have to respect the environment whilst in Tokyo I want to distance myself without letting go entirely of the sadness that a complete enclosure would entail. This sort of ambiguity is ever present.

Still, I have the sense that there are quite a lot of opportunities for an architect to design a house here. Indeed, you see a great many. Also, it's interesting that in Tokyo architects do lots of small houses, not the largest ones. They are jewel-like small yet astonishing. I don't think you will encounter that elsewhere. There's know-how in making what is small exceptional, an ability to add ambiguity to what is small in scale.

Contradiction is commonplace in Tokyo, beginning with the building of so many small houses in such a vast city. In fact, it's really absurd to think of these tiny dwellings, each with a little patch of garden, in such a great city. But that's what renders Tokyo interesting, and the very fact that it’s architects who conceive them is another piece of absurdity. It really is absurdity that creates interest in a city. It gives the place a certain personality and uniqueness. It would be more reasonable to build communal housing like Le Corbusier did, then give the rest over to parkland. But that's not quite what the Japanese themselves want.

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Dear readers, through my editorial work for dailies, magazines, etc. I’ve had a chance to meet several great photographers. One of them was Jeremie Souteyrat. He relocated to London a few years ago, but before leaving, he published a beautiful book about residential architecture in Tokyo.

During my walks around the Yamanote Line, I mostly see standard, boring detached two- or three-story houses, most of them looking exactly like all the others. But once in a while I discover something completely different.

In his book, Tokyo no ie, Jeremie went on a hunt for such architect-designed homes.

Here’s the book introduction:

As far as Tokyo is concerned, Westerners too often know little apart from the high-rise buildings of Shibuya and Shinjuku and the packed crowds of these commercial districts. But Tokyo is in fact a horizontal city with a lower per unit density than Paris. Whole neighborhoods of single-family dwellings spread beyond the horizon. In calm lanes, and sometimes even in alleyways, each family trying to build its nest, usually on a minimal site, produces a cocoon open to the elements, yet hidden from prying eyes.

The houses shown here are designed by some of Japan's best-known architects, sown like jewels in the immensity of Tokyo. In Japan, notions of architecture are liberal owing to the near inexistence of a legacy of buildings surviving from the past, thus better allowing architects to express their own ideas. In this way, Tokyo might be thought of as an open-air theater, with its building stock affording a unique theatrical set, while its inhabitants are both actors and audience.

In this project I wanted to document these residencies by means of photography while attempting to set them in context and explore their surroundings. In order to show the role of such buildings in the city, I've tried to reconcile the underlying humanity of urban photography with the rigor of the architectural image. A building is designed for living, from both within and without. Architecture gains its chief meaning from its relationship to the human inhabitant.

I asked Jeremie a few questions about the making of the book:

How did you choose the houses to photograph?
I searched online and in magazines for the most interesting and striking shapes—homes that would be impossible to find in Europe, and even unusual by Japanese standards. I also included some that were more conventional but well-situated for photography: near schools, bus stops, and other locations where everyday life might unfold in the frame.

Did you use a tripod?
Yes, it helped me fix the composition and then wait patiently for something interesting to happen within it.

On average, how long did you spend on each shoot? I noticed you included passersby in every photo.
About an hour, on average. I tried to give each house the same chance. But in some locations, I only saw one or two people in that time. Tokyo isn’t always the bustling metropolis we imagine—it can be surprisingly quiet.

In the acknowledgments, you thank the owners you met during the photo shoots. Did you ask each one for permission to photograph their home?
No, I wanted to capture the houses as they’re actually used - cars in the driveway, trash bins out front, curtains drawn or open. So I didn’t notify the owners or the architects beforehand. But occasionally I met the owners as they were coming or going. Some invited me in; others asked me to leave!

Dear readers, it’s not too late to support Tokyo Calling on the cheap.

If you like what I do, don’t forget the special 80% discount on annual paid subscriptions.

$30 → $6 (see link above)

Any kind of support is truly appreciated—whether it’s liking, commenting, sharing, or restaking. Every bit helps spread the word and makes Tokyo Calling more visible."

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Dear readers, thank you very much to all the people who have recently opted for a paid subscription.

If you like what I do and would like to support Tokyo Calling, don’t forget the special 80% discount on annual paid subscriptions.

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The Shibuya River has three primary sources. One is the spillway of the Tamagawa Aqueduct at Shinjuku Gyoen; the other two are ponds within Shinjuku Gyoen itself—the beautiful public park just south of Shinjuku Station.

These ponds were originally part of a garden belonging to the Naitō family, a prominent daimyo household during the Edo period. Before their estate took shape, the area was nothing more than rice fields bordered by a modest watercourse. During the Edo period, this waterway marked the boundary between the Naitō residence and the village of Sendagaya. Its original source was a pond within the grounds of Tenryū-ji, a Buddhist temple situated to the northwest.

Let’s follow the course of the Shibuya River from these origins and trace its layered history. Today, the pond water flows southward as part of a combined sewage canal, mingling with general wastewater.

After crossing Gaien-Nishi Street, the river slips directly beneath what is now known as Cat Street, on its way toward Shibuya Station. Along the route, it is joined by runoff from two additional ponds located within the expansive grounds of Meiji Shrine.

Around one of these shrine ponds, the landscape still retains traces of the feudal past, offering a glimpse into how human hands have reshaped the Shibuya River over centuries from the Edo period to the present day. South along Cat Street, where it meets Meiji Street, you’ll find the remnants of an old bridge, Miyashita-bashi, its name still visible on the roadside. Beneath your feet, the water is diverted into a modern sewer trunk line running under Meiji Street. From there, it is carried to the Shibaura Water Reclamation Center in Minato Ward, operated by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Sewerage Bureau.

Once you cross Inari Bridge and Tamagawa Street, the Shibuya River finally emerges above ground. In 2018, the Shibuya Stream complex opened here, introducing a riverfront promenade along the once-hidden waterway. The original culvert—normally dry—runs parallel to the JR Yamanote Line, extending toward the east exit of Shibuya Station. This stretch of the river has been significantly altered by the ongoing redevelopment of the station’s surrounding area.

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