Awajicho
Awajicho
Station is located in
Awajicho in the Kanda district of
Chiyoda Ward of Tokyo. The station
lies on the Tokyo Metro Marunouchi
Line and is connected to Shin Ochanomizu
and Ogawamachi Stations by means
of underground passageways.
Awajicho
Awajicho
is one of the few places in Tokyo
that is still home to pre-World
War II Tokyo, having survived the
destructions. The narrow streets
with haphazardly arranged buildings
and old wooden restaurants are a
sight far removed from the rest
of modern Tokyo.
From
the Edo period (1603-1867) till
the Great Earthquake in 1923, Awajicho
was the city's main produce market.
In 1936, a Transportation
Museum was opened on the
spot where the market once was.
The museum was a comprehensive museum
that covered all aspects of transportation
– air, ground, and maritime. A large
collection of original vehicles
and scale models, as well as materials
such as documents, drawings, photographs,
publications, etc. were on display.
Visitors to the Museum could also
learn about the mechanism and history
of various transport facilities.
This popular museum was closed in
May 2006 in preparation for a new
transportation museum which is due
to open in October 2007 at Omiya,
Saitama City, 30 km north of Tokyo.
Because
of the produce market in Awajicho,
several restaurants had sprung up
in the area for the market workers.
Several of these old Edo period
wooden restaurants still exist,
and they still serve the traditional
thick broths, fresh buckwheat noodles,
chicken stew and Japanese sweets
in settings rarely found in the
rest of Tokyo. These simple unassuming
restaurants, which abound in Awajicho,
are a great place to eat for those
looking for something different
from the upscale restaurants of
Ginza or Shinjuku.
A
popular such eatery in Awajicho,
to which connoisseurs travel a long
way to eat in, is Yabu Soba.
Opened in 1880 and rebuilt after
the 1923 Earthquake (it survived
the World War II bombardments),
this eatery has a small attractive
bamboo garden surrounded by a wooden
gate. Its interior is beautifully
decorated with traditional tatami,
old lacquer tables, and expanses
of shoji screens. Waitresses are
kimono-clad and orders are sung
out to the chef by a lady in the
corner. Yabu Soba serves the most
famous soba (buckwheat
noodles) in all of Tokyo, with Kamo-namban
(soba with duck meat) and
anago namban (soba with
conger eel) being the most popular.
Specialties of Yabu Soba are tendane
(round patty of fried shrimp
tempura ) and a seafood
fritter called kaki-age ,
often eaten with cold soba noodles.
Yabu Soba is well worth a visit,
if not to eat, then to experience
old traditional Tokyo. It is located
a few minutes' walk from Awajicho
Station.
