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April 29, 2024
 

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THEN AND NOW

Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / THEN AND NOW
Mar 5, 2004
Doing the business in old Edo style
The 1830s woodblock print by Hasegawa Settan shown here depicts Surugacho, now in the neighborhood of the Mitsukoshi department store one block north of Nihonbashi Bridge in the center of Tokyo. Rendered with excellent visual accuracy, it seems to be humming in praise of the wealth and prosperity of the Mitsui family, as even Mount Fuji joins in from a distance.
LIFE / Travel / THEN AND NOW
Feb 6, 2004
Spanning eras at Edo's vibrant hub
First of three parts Nihonbashi -- "Bridge of Japan" -- is the most famous and important bridge of Edo Period Japan. Designated by Shogun Ieyasu in 1603 as the hub of the country's highway network, with all distances measured from there, the small wooden structure with a 50-meter span was where journeys from the then political capital started or finished. In those days, too, when travel routes doubled as "information highways" constantly traversed by messengers, news of all kinds arrived here first and spread from here.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / THEN AND NOW
Dec 5, 2003
Plying the watery margins of old Edo
The accompanying 1830s woodblock print by Hasegawa Settan, titled "The Rokugo Ferry," shows a ferry that has just embarked on a crossing of the Tama River, taking about a dozen passengers and a horse to Kawasaki on the far shore. The two men dashing in vain to get on the boat will not be disappointed for long, as other ferries will soon be there to shuttle them across to Kawasaki, the second post station on the Tokaido highway.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / THEN AND NOW
Nov 7, 2003
Meandering in time beside the Tama
From its source in the high mountains to the northwest of Tokyo, the Tama River flows southwest before emptying into Tokyo Bay. The upper reaches in Okutama are part of the Chichibu-Tama National Park. The lower reaches separate Tokyo from Kanagawa Prefecture, with Haneda airport at the river's mouth.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / THEN AND NOW
Oct 3, 2003
Drenched in history: scenic Senzoku Pond
The 1830s woodblock print shown here depicts Senzoku Pond in a southwestern suburb of Edo that is now part of Ota Ward, Tokyo.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / THEN AND NOW
Sep 18, 2003
Step this way, pilgrim
This 1830s woodblock print by Edo Period artist Hasegawa Settan depicts the grand view of a temple on a wooded hill with a low-lying town in the foreground and peaceful Edo Bay in the distance. The picture is actually the right half of a sweeping landscape depicting Hommon-ji, an enormously popular Buddhist temple in the southwestern suburb of Edo, now part of Tokyo's Ota Ward.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / THEN AND NOW
Aug 21, 2003
Tracking down the old Tokaido
The old itinerant monk in "Oi," the 1830s woodblock print by Hasegawa Settan shown here, is admiring a gushing spring on a forested hillside. Apparently impressed by the joyous flow of water, he is speaking to a local temple apprentice who is pointing away to the right, possibly to another spring nearby.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / THEN AND NOW
Jul 17, 2003
Exploring a once bleak, medieval upland
In 1601 Tokugawa Ieyasu established a nationwide highway network radiating from Edo and designated post stations on the roads to serve the needs of travelers. Shinagawa, on the city's southwestern perimeter, was the first of these post stations on the Todaido, the most frequented route between Edo and Kyoto.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / THEN AND NOW
Jun 19, 2003
Strolling in a dream
This 1830s woodblock print by Edo artist Hasegawa Settan shows the vast precincts of Tokai-ji, a Zen temple in Shinagawa. Built by Shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu (1604-51) and donated in 1638 to Abbot Takuan Soho (1573-1645), Tokai-ji prospered as the third-largest temple in Edo, second only to Kan'ei-ji in Ueno and Zojo-ji in Shiba.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / THEN AND NOW
May 15, 2003
Where the Tokaido left the town
Eastern Shinagawa, on the western side of central Tokyo, is fast being transformed from a decaying industrial area of warehouses and rail marshalling yards into a modern business hub. One step beyond the forests of shining new high rises, however, the area's history as an Edo Period post-station town on the old Tokaido highway at the city's edge lives on here and there. Footprints of fishermen, found off the main roads, also tell of the happy days when people there lived close to the sea.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / THEN AND NOW
Apr 17, 2003
Tokyo's own stairway to heaven
The 1830s woodcut print by Hasegawa Settan depicts the steep, densely wooded hillside of Atago-yama topped in the haze by the Shinto shrine of Atago-jinja, which visitors reach either by a stone stairway thrusting straight to the summit, or another zigzagging round the side. In the foreground, a torii (entrance gate) guarding the shrine's precincts is flanked by affiliated temples and shrines.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / THEN AND NOW
Mar 20, 2003
Walking on waters that were
Tsukiji, now famous as home to the world's biggest fish market, was reclaimed from the sea in the 17th century. Its transformation from seabed to seashore came after the magnificent first city of Edo, designed by Shogun Ieyasu in 1603 and completed around 1650, was destroyed by a fire in 1657. Then, with rebuilding going on everywhere, the Tokugawa Shogunate determined to expand the city on its eastern and southern margins, building bridges across the Sumida River and filling in sections of Edo Bay. Tsukiji, meaning "constructed land," was added south of Ginza in this process.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / THEN AND NOW
Feb 20, 2003
Down by the Edo riverside
The 1830s woodcut prints by Hasegawa Settan depict an amazing panorama of Edo as seen looking southeast from Edo Castle. The unobstructed view must have been the one the shogun enjoyed from his castle in what is now the Imperial Palace's East Garden, introduced in this column last month.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / THEN AND NOW
Jan 16, 2003
Tokyo's refreshing oasis of history and nature
As the most important festival on the Japanese calendar, New Year is an occasion to make wishes and resolutions, and to wish others happiness in the coming year. Most people also like to visit a Shinto shrine or Buddhist temple, and to gather together with family and friends. On Jan. 2, crowds also visit the Imperial Palace to see the Emperor offer his annual New Year's greetings.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / THEN AND NOW
Dec 19, 2002
An oasis on a trail of luck
Winter sees Shinobazu Pond in Ueno come alive with winged visitors from the North. Pintail and wigeons arrive early in September, followed by shovelers, mallards, pochard and tufted ducks arriving by November. Along with the resident gallinules, spot-billed ducks and cormorants -- and the perennial sea gulls from Tokyo Bay -- the pond's waterfowl population swells to thousands during the coldest months.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / THEN AND NOW
Nov 21, 2002
Marriage of East and West
About a kilometer south of Oji in Tokyo's present-day Kita Ward, there used to be a pond called Naga-ike, from which a small river ran southeast about 6 km to feed Shinobazu Pond in Ueno. Named the Yata, the short but abundant flow was usefully exploited to support horticulture and rice-farming in its valley.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / THEN AND NOW
Oct 17, 2002
A proud town founded on ferries
The Ara River rises in the Chichibu Mountains of Saitama Prefecture, from where it flows southeast for some 140 km to reach the capital and discharge itself into Tokyo Bay. As its name (which means "rough") implies, it used to be a violent river, swelling after heavy rains and raging across the wide flood plain of the Sumida, as the river is known in its lower reaches.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / THEN AND NOW
Sep 19, 2002
Watching the river's flow
In the best-selling 19th-century guidebook, "Edo Meisho Zue (Famous Places of Edo)," there are many prints showing the picturesque scenery and ancient shrines in the vicinity of Oji in present-day Kita Ward. Robert Fortune, the Scottish botanist who was in Japan in 1860 and 1861, enjoyed his visit there, noting in his 1863 book "Yedo and Peking": "Here the good citizens of Yedo [sic] come out for a day's pleasure and recreation, and certainly it would be difficult to find a spot more lovely or more enjoyable."
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / THEN AND NOW
Aug 15, 2002
History still alive on the old Nakasendo
Of the five highways (gokaido) built in the early years of the Tokugawa Shogunate to radiate through the country from its capital at Edo (present-day Tokyo), the best-known nowadays is the Tokaido coastal route to Kyoto. Hardly less used during the Edo Period (1603-1867), however, was the mountain route to the Imperial seat, the Nakasendo, along which daimyo and their families traveled between the capital and their provincial domains.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / THEN AND NOW
Jul 18, 2002
An oasis beckoning on the shogun's hill
This 1830s woodcut print by the Edo artist Hasegawa Settan shows people chasing fireflies on broad rice paddies early in the evening. Men and boys are swishing around long bamboo brooms trying to catch high-flying males, while women and less nimble hunters are wafting fans around to trap low-hovering female bugs. While we see some new arrivals hurrying to join in, two boys with their cages full of the luminous beetles are happily making their way home.
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