Tokudaiji Temple

Well, it was back to Ueno station for us.  We were on to Kappabashi Dori, the home of the plastic food stores and other kitchen shops.

But not before we tried to find the temple from the day before.  Tokudaiji Temple.  And we found it.  The bad thing is it was sort of difficult to find.  There seemed to be only one narrow staircase leading up to it, and to top it off, it appeared the only public part (that we saw) was the part at the top of the stairs.  A couple of quick photos and a run through a local grocery and we were back to Ueno station and back towards Kappabashi.

The Kappabashi Chef

Kappabashi Dori is renowned for the stores there.  Lots of places with kitchenware of every single kind.  And of course, more famously, the stores lined with the plastic foodstuffs used by restaurants in their display cases.  This stuff is cool, but it is not cheap.  One of these pictured beer mugs goes for ¥4500, which is not a good souvenir bargain in my book.  I’d rather have the real thing anyway.

Plastic dishes

If  you go the way we did, that is to take the Ginza line from Ueno to Tawaramachi, you’ll have to go down Asakusa street.  The shops here seemed to be selling primarily altars for your home.  The kind you use to put photos of your dead relatives and to burn incense and give offerings to, etc.  They’re not cabinets or china cupboards.  We saw a couple of tourists in one of these shops going, “ooo! ahh!” and we just shook our heads and moved on.  FYI.

Truthfully though Kappabashi was kind of a let down.  Maybe we didn’t go far enough down the street, but a few shops with cookware and a couple more with plastic food just didn’t leave us impressed.  A big, “eh.” from us on that.

100% Genuine Fake Beer

Bonus: Got to see (and hear) a brand new Nissan Skyline GT-R being admired on the street.  Purrrr.

Back into Tawaramachi and to the end of the Ginza line, and to Senso-ji.  Ooooh, brother.

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