Quiet green lanes, low-rise wooden houses, generations-old tofu stores, atmospheric temples, cycling grannies, small creative ateliers — and cats. Lots of cats.
Yanaka, an east Tokyo neighborhood hugging the fringes of the JR Yamanote circle, is something of an urban time capsule, with its growing population of young artisan makers and unusually well preserved buildings (a lucky legacy of surviving the wartime blitz that razed other parts of the capital).
Yet architecture and creativity are not the only reasons to visit the seductively slow-paced district: it's also heaven for cat lovers. This doesn't take long to register among visitors: Cats in all shapes, sizes and colors (often walking purposefully, with heads held high, as if on their way to a very important meeting), are frequent protagonists in countless daily scenes.