The Suijo Bus is a tourist ferry with a different few routes along the Sumida River and on Tokyo Bay, and is a great way to see Tokyo from another aspect that many people don’t see. It’s a good reminder that Tokyo is actually a waterfront city, which is easy to forget when in many of Tokyo’s major districts.
But Tokyo Bay is no Sydney Harbour, and you need to look for the subtle and smaller things to take maximum enjoyment.
My Suijo Bus ride started at Hinode Pier, near Hamamatsu-cho station, and chugged up the Sumida River to Asakusa. Rainbow Bridge was not far from Hinode Pier, although the rainy season haze made the view not that exciting.
The ride took around 40 minutes, first passing the back of Tsukiji Market (but since the tuna are not swimming around Tokyo Bay, there’s not a lot to see). The river banks were lined with tall concrete buildings, many with a good view along the river. If only the same could be said for the architecture of some of these buildings. As we passed Ryogoku, a wall on one bank was lined with murals depicting sumo – since Ryogoku is home to Kokugikan sumo stadium. Sorry, but I was sitting on the wrong side of the boat to get any photos of them.
We passed numerous canals feeding into the river, many of which seem to be used by service boats. Old bridges create images of bygone days, whether industrial or even something a little more grand. One of the bridges we passed under carries the Sobu train line to Chiba, which I used to ride often during my university exchange days – seeing this from a new perspective gave me a new sense of how this part of Tokyo fits together.
The architecture is not always beautiful.
And some architecture is more temporary – here some homeless people have set up some fairly robust looking shelters. I think that homeless peoples’ shelters have always been quite visible in Tokyo, but anecdotally, there seem to be more in recent times due to the state of the economy.
As we reached Asakusa, one of Tokyo’s more infamous landmarks became visible. This is the Asahi Beer head office, along with the sculpture of the golden, well, you work it out.
Asakusa is old Tokyo gentrified. Its most famous landmark is Kaminari-mon (Thunder Gate), at the entrance to Senso-ji. It’s always busy on weekend, and there seems to be a higher density of foreign tourists here than anywhere else in Tokyo. I had a quick manju from a street stall before fleeing.
After leaving Asakusa, it was off to Nipponbashi. This grand building is the original Mitsukoshi Department Store, and still the flagship store. It was Japan’s first department store, built in 1914. This area was once Tokyo’s central retail district, but has faded away since Ginza and other districts flourished.
This is Nihonbashi – Nihon Bridge. In the Edo period, it used to be the official start of 5 major long distance roads in Japan, including the famous Tokaido to Kyoto. The current bridge dates back to 1911, but the vista is not helped by the 1960s overhead expressway running up the moddle of the river and which was built in the name of progress.
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