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.

Ume (prunus mume) 2 / YushimaTenjin, two weeks after

On March 2nd, The ume flowers in Yushima Tenjin were full bloomed.
It was only 9:00 am, a bit early for sightseeing, however there were many Ume-watcher in the shrine yard.

Most of ume of this shrine were Hakubai (white Ume), which were full bloomed.
....and there were some Koubai (red Ume), too.

The pile of Ema was growing larger than 2 weeks before.

The students who had succeeded their entrance exam were hanging "Thank you-Ema".
You can find there are several piles of Ema all around the shrine yard.

As I mentioned in previous post, this place is recognized as a mecca for examinees.

Ume (Prunus Mume) / Yushima Tenjin shrine

Ume flower is often described as a harbinger of spring in Japanese literature or songs. The combination of "Ume and Uguisu[Japanese Nightingale]" is very popular as a golden battery that marks the end of winter. During Sunday morning walking with Lee, I found some Ume flowers began to bloom. Although the cold weather has been continuing even now, spring is actually coming here in Tokyo.

I had heard the Ume Matsuri[Ume festival] was held in the yard of the Yushima Tenjin, so Lee and I went there to see the Ume bloosoms.

The temprature has been still cool and there were some snow remaining on the pavement (11th Feb.).

Yushima Tenjin is famous shrine that enshrines Sugawara-no-Michizane. Michizane was a top ranking elite bureaucrat in Heian-era who excelled in scholarship, and now a day, he's defined as Tenjin-sama or Kami[God] of academics. At the end of his life, he fell into a political trap of his rival and demoted to the officer of far west area. At the day of departure, he made a "waka"[short poem] regarding Ume flower.
"Kochi hukaba nioiokoseyo Ume no hana, nushinasitote haru wo wasuruna" [When you feel the east wind, Ume flower, remind yourself to bloom, even if I am not there. (I'm so sorry my terrible translation)].
According to his regend, an Ume tree, which was loved by Michizane, flied out to his far west house from Kyoto (the regend of Tobi-Ume[flying Ume]). Ume flowers thus became to be recognized as the theme flower of Tenjin shrines (Tenman-gu) across Japan.

Since he is a Kami of scholorship, many students preparing for their college/highschool entrance exam visit there and pray for their success. Students hang Ema[wooden plaque] in which their wishes were written.
It was a entrance exam season, thus so many Emas were hanging there.(11rd Feb.)

And , below is the photo taken on 17th Feb. Students who succeed their exam visit to thank Tenjin-sama for thier success.

Anyway, it was too early to enjoy full bloomed Ume bloosoms.
We'll try to get there again in the end of Februaly. Ume Matsuri will be held until early March.

Yushima Tenjin is near by the University of Tokyo. The closest station is Yushima of Chiyoda-line(Tokyo Metro).

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.