Kappa-bashi kitchen town / Taito ward

Between the famous sight seeing places, Ueno and Asakusa, there is a unique town which has been attracting people who are interested in cooking. Kappa-bashi; the mecca of cooks and owners of all kind of restaurant.
If you want to open your own restaurant, I recommend you to visit this town. And also you can enjoy your shopping there as a non-professional visitor.

There are many cutlery shops, utensil shops….

Interior and Exterior shops…

Here is a food sample shop. These samples are made by wax and plastic. These were very exquisite and,,, looked yummy!

Don’t forget stools, chairs and tables for opening your restaurant.

What kind of uniform do you need?

You can buy a cash register here.

This shop attracted me very much.

Look! You can roast coffee beans by yourself on a gas range.

You want to open a chinese restaurant?

And otherwise, there are many shops for soba restaurant, confectioners, etc, etc...

The closest station of Kappa-bashi is Inaricho or Tawaramachi of Tokyo metro Ginza line.
You can find the landmark buildings, the first photo of this posting and the photo below, from Asakusa-dori street. This is a gate for Kappa-bashi area.

You'd better visit on weekdays or Saturday. On Sunday, most of shops are closed.

Hagoita-Ichi (Hagoita Fair) / Senso-ji temple, Asakusa

Hagoita is, originally, a paddle of the traditional racket game, Hanetsuki, which is played by kids during the New Year’s holiday. It also has been made and displayed as a charm against evil. Ancient people believed that Hagoita would hit bad lucks away. It has become one of the craft arts of Tokyo.
Every December, Hagoita craftsmen gather at Asakusa Senso-ji temple for the Hagoita-Ichi (Hagoita Fair). This fair has been held there since Edo era and it has become one of the signature winter event in Tokyo.

Hagoita-Ichi poster displayed at JR Ueno station.

Last Thursday night, I dropped over at Asakusa on the way back home, and took Asakusa night scene and some Hagoita pictures. (All of pictures can be enlarged by clicking them.)


It was already over 20 o’clock, so most of the shops on the approach pavement to the Senso-ji were about closed.


I often had been there in the daytime, but it was a first time to visit at night.


Most of the Hagoita were featuring the Kabuki-actors.

Apparently the range of prices of normal sizes were around 20,000 - 50,000 yen. Bigger hagoita were over 300,000yen,,, zee, who could buy them?


Some of craftsmen feature celebrities or athletes who were active this year.

The boy with red cap in the above picture is Ryo Ishikawa, Japanese professional golf rookie, who won a golf tournament when he was just 15 (he was recorded in the Guinness book as the youngest winner of the regular golf tournament) and became a professional golfer this year.


“Hello Kitty”?



The dates of the fair are 17th to 19th December, every year. Please note on your next year’s calender.

The closest station is Asakusa (Tokyo Metro Ginza-line, Tobu Isesaki-line and Toei Asakusa-line).

Asagao-Ichi (Morning Glory Fair) / Iriya

The rainy season has not finished yet, but summer is coming soon.
When I was in the 1st grade of the elementary school, the homework for the summer vacation was the observation of Asagao (Morning glory:Ipomoea nil ). Whenever I saw Asagao, it reminds me the old scene of the summer day... yeah, I dried it out (LOL).

Asagao-Ichi (Morning glory fair), a symbolic festival for the opening of summer. Especially, Iriya Asagao-Ich, which is held in front of the Iriya Kishibojin temple in early July, is very famous for it's scale and history.
Last Saturday evening, three of us(my wife, daughter and me) and my wife's mother, who came from Osaka to spent this summer with us, went to there for buying Asagao. (please allow me to describe her as "Gramma" in this blog. OK, Gramma?)

The 6-lane road (Kototoi-street) was closed for a block (about 200 meter long) and there were filled with many Asagao stalls and many buyers.

I learned that there are many kinds of Asagao; Japanese Asagao, European Asagao, Ryukyu (Okinawan) Asagao etc... I should've studied that before shopping. It took so long time to make up our mind what kind of Asagao we should buy.

Gramma kindly bought us a big pot of "Crystal Blue", a kind of Ryukyu Asagao. The seller said "color of flower is so beautiful!".

Exactly!( photo (below) was taken in the next morning) It'll be fun to see it every morning.

Gramma bought a pot of Yuugao(Lagenaria siceraria var. hispida) along with the Asagao, too. Thank you, Gramma.
While Asagao blooms in the morning(Asa), this plant blooms in the evening(Yuu) , so it is called Yuugao. But these plants belong to the different families.

Yuugao seems too early to enjoy the bloom. We're looking forward to see it!

Iryiya Kishibojin. We couldn't enter the temple yard because of the big crowds of people.

A lot of people made the line to enter into the temple.

After enjoying shopping, we moved to Asakusa (it's close to Iriya) to enjoy the Tempra Dinner!
Our favorite Tempra restaurant "Sansada" is located in the side of Asakusa Kaminari-mon.


This is an old restaurant with 160-years history. The taste of tempra is great, and also the cost performance is good, too. Unfortunately, the atmosphere of the hall staffs (old ladies) is a little bit ,,,,,,, scary. If you talk with them, you'll find that they are friendly grannies, maybe, but,,, they make me feel the "DON'T BOTHER ME!"-aura. Actually, I love this restaurant, but I cannot get used to them.

Anyway we enjoyed our Tempra dinner! I recommend you to try delicious Tempra here, if you'll visit Asakusa.