This article is based on a visit made on Monday, 31 March 2014.
On the second full day of my Spring 2014 trip, I had intended to visit the town of Kamakura, an hour south from Tokyo by train. However, I had something of a stressful time the night before, and on the fly decided to forgo that in favour of other places around central Tokyo I had not yet experienced. First on my list was Ginza, a famous commerce and retail district in eastern Tokyo.
Before setting out to Ginza, however, I had a look around Tokyo Station, which was adjacent to the hotel I was staying at (the
Hotel Metropolitan Tokyo Marunouchi). The Yaesu entrances face east...
...And the Marunouchi entrances face west. This side, refurbished in 2012, was built to resemble the old station building from over a hundred years ago.
From Tokyo Station, I took a hop on the Yamanote line one stop down to Yurakucho Station, and walked eastward from there. The name "Ginza" (銀座) means "silver place", referring to a silver-coin mint located in the area back during the Edo period. After a fire in 1872 devastated the area, it was rebuilt in a more modern fashion, under the supervision of the Irish architect
Thomas Waters. Today, Ginza is one of the ritziest places in Tokyo. As property values in the area can go up to 40 million yen per square meter (over US$3.9 million per square foot!), the retail options tend to skew towards the higher end of the economy. [1]
I had a look around the Yurakucho area on my first night in, too. It was then that I had a peek in the Tokyo International Forum, a convention centre and concert venue. It will also host weightlifting events in the 2020 Summer Olympics. The complex consists of a lobby called the "Glass Building", shown, and a series of halls and conference rooms in separate buildings, connected by underground and overhead passages. The centre was designed by the Uruguayan architect
Rafael Viñoly, and opened in 1997.
I passed this movie theatre not far along the way. It's called the Marunouchi Piccadilly, and it shares a building with the Lumine department store. Some of the movies advertised were famous American movies just getting their release in Japan. I can identify the following:
Frozen (far left),
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (3rd from left), and
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2nd from right).
Not far down the road stands this mini-police station, or
koban (交番,
kōban, lit. 'meeting number'). In addition to taking crime reports, the officers at koban will hold lost-and-found items and even give directions for those lost. It is a good idea to find the closest koban to where you will be staying in Japan.
Across the road from that police box, this wavy glass building is the headquarters of Fujiya, a confectionery and restaurant company. They have a mascot named Peko-chan, a girl with pigtails who is always licking her lips. Trust me, she'll become more instantly recogniseable the longer you stay in Japan.
One block down from there, I came to the Ginza 4-chome intersection. Standing at the west corner is the Ricoh Art Gallery.
The Wako department store stands on the north corner of Ginza 4-chome. Its famous clock tower is an homage to the previous building that occupied this corner, which was also topped by a clock tower. The current building dates back to 1932. [2]
And on the east corner is the Mitsukoshi department store. The brand gets its name from a kimono company which, in the late 1600s, set up shop in the nearby Nihonbashi district. Their store here in Ginza opened in 1930. If the name sounds familiar to Disney park fans, it's probably because they own the store at Epcot's Japan pavilion, their only location in the US. [3]
Just a couple of blocks down from Ginza 4-chome, I came across this golden, twisted building. This happens to be the headquarters of PIAS, a cosmetics company.
Eventually, I reached the Kabuki-za (歌舞伎座) theatre. On my first visit to Japan, Kabuki-za was closed for renovations, but it had since re-opened in 2013. This is, in fact, the fourth theatre standing at this site, the first having been built in 1889, but demolished in a fire in 1921. This iteration of the theatre is virtually identical to its predecessor (1950-2010), except that a high-rise tower now stands behind it.
A tourist information centre for Gunma Prefecture (northwest of Tokyo), across from Kabuki-za. The mascot of the prefecture, named Gunma-chan, is seen multiple times across this window, fittingly dressed up in various kabuki costumes.
Another window of the same tourist centre. The red thingy on the left side is called a
Daruma (達磨). What is a Daruma, you may ask? It is a doll modelled after
Bodhidharma, a Buddhist monk attributed to bringing the Zen Buddhism sect to Japan from China. There is a legend in which Bodhidharma meditated in front of a wall for nine years, upon which his arms and legs decayed and fell off. Hence, the doll's form. Another tradition of the Daruma has to do with its eyes, which start off as blank. You fill in one eye when you make a wish or set out on a personal goal, and fill in the other when this has been completed.
Ginza is also famous for its "Pedestrian Heaven" events, in which a section of Chuo-dori is shut down to automotive traffic, letting pedestrians walk the streets freely. This takes place on weekends and holidays, from 12:00 PM to 5:00 PM (6:00 PM during the summer). Alas, since I visited on a Monday morning, I could not witness this for myself.
There were other hotspots in Ginza which I failed to visit... if only because they hadn't been built yet. The Tokyu Plaza shopping mall, situated across from the police box and the Fujiya building shown above, opened in March 2016. Its angular glass design offers some fair views for shoppers on its upper floors, as well as from the rooftop garden and cafe.
Also opened in 2016, Ginza Place is a building on the south corner of the Ginza 4-chome crossing. It features the Nissan Crossing showroom, the Sony Imaging Gallery and showroom, and some restaurants.
Finally, a block away from Ginza 4-chome, a new mall called Ginza Six opened in 2017. It is the biggest building in the area, and boasts a hybrid tourism office / Lawson convenience store, a Noh theatre in the basement floors, and as with Tokyu Plaza, a rooftop garden and cafe.
Access: The Ginza district is best accessed by Yurakucho Station (JR Yamanote
(JY), Keihin-Tohoku
(JK), and Tokyo Metro Yurakucho
(Y) lines), Ginza Station (Tokyo Metro Ginza
(G), Hibiya
(H), and Marunouchi
(M) lines), or Higashi-Ginza Station (Tokyo Metro Hibiya and Toei Asakusa
(A) lines).
From Tokyo Station, take the Yamanote or Keihin-Tohoku lines to Yurakucho (JY30/JK25, 2 minutes, ¥140), or the Marunouchi subway line to Ginza (M16, 2 minutes, ¥170). From Shinjuku Station, take the Marunouchi line to Ginza (15 minutes, ¥200).
Tokyo Station, also seen in this article, is served by the JR Tokaido/Tohoku/Joetsu/Hokuriku Shinkansen, Yamanote, Chuo (Rapid)
(JC), Keihin-Tohoku, Tokaido
(JT), Sobu
(JO), Yokosuka
(JO), Keiyo
(JE), and Tokyo Metro Marunouchi lines.
[1] Plaza Homes, Ltd. "Official Land Prices of Japan in 2016". Retrieved on 8 June 2017.
http://www.realestate-tokyo.com/news/official-land-price-tokyo-2016/
[2] Sundberg, Steve. "Hattori (Wako) Building, Ginza". Retrieved on 8 June 2017.
http://www.oldtokyo.com/hattori-wako-building-ginza/
(3) "Mitsukoshi's History". Retrieved on 8 June 2017.
https://mitsukoshi.mistore.jp/store/nihombashi/foreign_customer/history/index.html
