I had something to do today, so I went out early in the morning. When passing through Tokyo, I took a train from Asakusa Station. Asakusa is an area in Tokyo, and it is also a very popular tourist spot. This is because places that still give a strong feeling of old Tokyo remain there, such as Kaminarimon Gate, Sensoji Temple, and Nakamise Street. These kinds of areas are sometimes called “shitamachi.” The word has several meanings, but in modern usage it often refers to ordinary neighborhoods where everyday people live. So it’s a place where you can feel a more natural, everyday Japanese lifestyle.Asakusa is extremely popular as a sightseeing area, so there are many tour groups, and it is always filled with people. Many visitors come from overseas as well. I didn’t go sightseeing this time, but I have visited several times in the past.Also, Tokyo Skytree—now one of Tokyo’s new symbols—was completed in 2012. It is 634 meters tall and is very close to Asakusa (you can see it clearly), and this has also increased the area’s popularity. I went up to the Skytree observatory once, and it really is very high. There were also many foreign tourists there.
I also transferred trains at Tokyo Station, and there were even more people than before (haha). Tokyo Station has always been crowded, but now it seems to be popular not only with Japanese passengers but also with tourists from overseas. The reason is that Tokyo Station has many different shops—restaurants, souvenir shops, and even character shops for anime and manga. And there is also a beautiful hotel connected to the station. And this month, a new Dragon Ball shop, “DRAGON BALL STORE TOKYO,” opened in the underground shopping area of Tokyo Station (called “Ichiban-gai”), and it has become a big topic. Dragon Ball is, of course, the work drawn by Akira Toriyama, and I have been reading the manga since it first started. Akira Toriyama is one of my favorite manga artists (as he is for many people), and I have always loved the world he created. Sadly, he passed away last year, but I believe his works will continue to be loved all over the world.
Still, it had been a while since I last went to the Tokyo Station area, and the huge number of people was really something… haha 😅
