Saturday, January 14, 2012

Old stuff, Ōokayama 大岡山, Tokyo



The other day I dropped my daughter off at her kindergarten and had a couple of hours to kill, so I wandered around the local area.

It's called Ōokayama, near Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech) and about 20 minutes by train from Shibuya.

Anyway, somewhere along the ramble I stumbled across this amazing oasis of miniature shrines alongside an artificial waterfall and huge carp in a pond. The place is located slap-bang in a minor valley, deserted and looked, well... old.


Obviously I loved it!

Plus there were some interesting old houses and objects around the same area. The refugee old rotary dial phone particularly appealed to me.

Also a great place to sit and read - since I'm currently getting into Shuichi Yoshida's novel Villain - and mull over the directions of my own, parts of which are going to be set in older Tokyo.