Yanaka is a quiet neighborhood in the northeast corner of urban Tokyo, partly because it is the last of the truly shitamachi neighborhoods of old Tokyo and partly because several thousands of its inhabitants are no longer part of the living. Yanaka Cemetery takes a large part of the neighborhood and is the permanent “home”…
Tag: shitamachi
Torigoe Matsuri
Torigoe Shrine would probably be just another obscure little shrine in Tokyo’s shitamachi (“low town” loosely interpreted as the working-class district) if not for one feature: its huge four ton mikoshi (portable shrine). Once a year, the people living around the shrine literally fight for the right to carry the shrine in a procession on…