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Looking down on Zojoji
Jan 20, 2021
The viewing platform at Tokyo Tower provides an excellent opportunity to look down on the magnificent Zojoji Temple complex. Taken at the end of 2020, and a few days before I was standing in the Temple on a subzero New Years Eve, this is a view from just before the world changed and the travel options we so much took for granted were taken away. The narrow road on the left is a familiar route for me, being my approach of choice to the iconic Tokyo Tower.…
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Hato Bus
Nov 09, 2020
There is something special about a Japanese tour bus, and these from the 70 year old Hato Bus company, at the foot of Tokyo Tower, are a fine example. They carry you in comfort along the paths and between the districts of the city and beyond. The smartly uniformed staff keep you informed and entertained, and the views and sights are an endless source of opportunities to note for future exploration on foot.…
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Roads and Skylines
Sep 07, 2020
This photograph was taken looking south towards Shinkawa towards the end of the day. The red brickwork is part of the Royal Park Hotel. I love the way layer upon layer of high rise buildings jostle for a place in the sky, presenting a line far more complex than the most intricate key, and just as unique. From every one of countless windows there is a different and individual skyline.
pathdistricthotelchuonihonbashikakigarachohakozakichoshinkawa
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Blue Horizons
Aug 11, 2020
Looking south over Sumida and Koto wards from the Skytree on an almost cloudless April morning over countless homes and businesses all the way to the Tokyo Gate Bridge and Haneda Airport and the highrise cluster of Chuo City. It looks vast, and yet is still only a small slice of the whole of Tokyo. Below, in the long thin Sumida River Park where I had just walked, are chaperoned tribes of colourfully hatted kindergarten classes playing, and old men quietly fishing in a fragment of an old canal.…
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Roads upon roads upon roads upon roads
Jun 05, 2020
The complexity of the transport infrastructure is not often appreciated from ground level, but at some places you can look up and see a glimpse of it. Like here at Hakozaki Junction where four layers of roads can be seen.
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Pink, white and blue
Mar 30, 2020
This office block in Sumida City caught my eye, the very man made colour framed by the pink, white and blue of nature. It overlooks the Sumida River Park, a very pleasant long thin park whose pathways mark the boundary between many of the eastern and western districts of Sumida ward.
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Complex Road Junction
Mar 17, 2020
Hakozaki Junction in Kakigaracho is typical of many such junctions in Tokyo. Multiple levels of overhead roads somehow weaving between hi-rise buildings, and barely noticeable from the streets below.
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Tokyo Station
Jan 25, 2020
Tokyo Station is an immense building with an amazing history. Here is the south side of the station, and the central dome. It sits astride a massively complex transit system nexus and a vast underground shopping mall. With trains and metros, taxis, busses and coaches it truely is a location where journeys begin, end and transition.
pathdistrictnodelandmarkbuildingchiyodamarunouchitokyo station
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Shibuya in the rain
Dec 26, 2019
The night time city is always aglow with its endless neon (or more likely LED) lights, but when it rains the streets are covered with rivers of reflected lights that are quite otherworldly. The Shibuya Scramble Crossing is always a special place to be, but at night in a quiet warm rain with my combini umbrella there are few other places I would rather be.
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Joyful Shopping Street
Dec 10, 2019
Whilst not necessarily “Joyful” as such, I always find it a joy to discover these covered shopping streets, or shotengai, that still cater for their local communities. There are numerous little stores selling all manner of produce and services. And above them are often the residences of the store owners. This one, actually called the Joyful Minowa Shopping Street, is in Minamisenju and my favourite way to get there is to take the Arakawa Tram to the terminus at Minowabashi.…