Yanaka

A lot of Tokyo has succumbed to "modern" Japan but there are still pockets where you can stroll and see the spiritual side of Japan shaking hands with shitamachi (or downtown) everyday life. One of these places is Yanaka, the area just south of Nippori JR station.

If shrines, temples and cemeteries are your thing, then its a cool walk, but what interested me more were the scenes of Japan "everydayness" - old wooden houses silhouetted against a blue (crap! we saw the sun today!) sky, airing futons over the balcony, run-down izakayas hidden by piles of red Kirin crates - echoes of the night of debauchery just gone.

And you see the strangest things in the most unlikely places - as I wandered back to the station, I was met by a roadside shrine of Baikin-man, otherwise known as Bacteria Man, the arch enemy of Anpan Man (only in Japan could you have an animated hero made out of red bean paste). I know Japan loves its anime, but a religious homage to bacteria? Nippon Gold!