Tokyo off the beaten path

 

I have been returning to Tokyo for decades after living here for 3+ years meeting my wife and working for many Japanese companies.  There is a slick, modern, classical, beautiful side of the city that you see in travel photos and on Instagram, but I like to look for the grittier side of cities as well.  I live in San Francisco now and when I tell people I live there when I am traveling, people comment on what a beautiful city it is.  I agree it has beauty but there is a gritty, dirty side that residents of the city deals with every day.

Now in Tokyo I have not seen people sleeping on porches of million dollar homes or people shooting up and using the sidewalk as their bathroom.  Ok, late at night maybe there are drunk people urinating in public and puking on train platforms and in trains.

So back to the topic of this blog entry.  I write this from a 24hr coffee shop (Jonathan’s) where I do my overseas conference calls as not to wake my family and relatives in the early morning hours.  On this trip I have tried to capture more of the city that is seen by the typical working family and working people.

These are parts of Tokyo that have not gentrified and still have the old shopping streets or shotengai with coffee shops and izakaya.  Ok there are some trendy “baru” restaurants popping up here and there but they are trying to look like there are old so they kind of fit in.  Above are some areas you can get off the beaten path – Akabane in Kita-Ku, and the side streets or underground around Asakusa (the old downtown or shitamachi).