Tokyo's Retro Shopping Street; Yanaka Ginza

Wanna visit Tokyo's the best-kept secret place? If you are looking a good place not many people know about, "Yanaka Ginza" in Taito-ku, Tokyo is my recommendation.

Yanaka Ginza is a downtown in Tokyo that has a retro shopping street. In recent years, Yanaka Ginza is often used as filming location of drama, and TV programs and magazines introduce this town as hidden sightseeing spot. Because of that, Yanaka Ginza is tend to be popular, recently.

The closest station of Yanaka Ginza is Nippori station. If you take the west exit, then go down the Goten slope, Yanaka Ginza is right there. There are about 60 of small shops in the street, such as places to eat and accessory shops. Each shop has unique appearance.

What you probably want to do in Yanaka Ginza is an eating tour.There are several butcher selling croquettes and fried cake of minced meat as their side menu. You may want to find your favorite shop.

The one I bought today is a specialty of Yanaka Ginza, called "Fukunyan Yaki."
It is a grilled bun with two colors chocolate inside, and as you can see, the shape is like a cat.
It looks cute, and it tastes good, so people stop by.

Furthermore, there are stray cats walking free in Yanaka Ginza. The retro town's atmosphere matches with cat walking around, so you will feel peace. Just by looking the view, people shows smiles in their face. So I do.

In addition, there is a temple of about 60 near the Yanaka Ginza, so you may enjoy a day just to explore the Yanaka, Nezu, Sendagi area.

In particular, Sudo park has a nice garden, and at Nezu Shrine,  azaleas are blooming beautifully. Those are recommended.  Also in Nezu Shrine, there is a torii that prolonged long, so you would be overwhelmed by them as a thousand torii of Fushimi Inari shrine in Kyoto.

Finally, there are many shops that sell leather bags in Yanaka Ginza. Men's bag shop T-style went there one day to shoot some photos of the bags with the retro downtown cityscape in the back. It was the first time for one of the staff of T-Style to visit Yanaka Ginza, and since then, the staff became a fan of retro shipping streets.

I hope you like the retro street of Tokyo. You can feel the history.