Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Sony Building
5-3-1 Ginza, Chūō-ku • Daily 11am-7pm • Free •
W
sonybuilding.jp • Ginza station
With four of its eleven storeys showcasing the latest Sony gadgets, and any number
of products-in-development, the
Sony Building
is a must-see for techno-freaks. There's
a tax-free shop on the fourth floor and restaurants on most levels, but even if you're a
technophobe it's worth popping along to see just what all the fuss is about.
2
Nihombashi
ຊڮ
North of Ginza,
Nihombashi
was once the heart of Edo's teeming Shitamachi (see
p.247), growing from a cluster of early seventeenth-century riverside markets to
become the city's chief financial district. The early warehouses and moneylenders
evolved into the banks, brokers and trading companies you'll see here today.
Bridgestone Museum of Art
ϒϦξετϯඒज़ؗ
, Burijisuton Bijutsukan • 1-10-1 Kyōbashi, Chūō-ku • Tues-Sun 10am-6pm • ¥800 •
T
03 3563 0241,
W
bridgestone-museum.gr.jp • Tokyo, Kyōbashi or Nihombashi stations
Despite the presence of Van Gogh, Renoir, Degas, Monet, Manet, Miró and a whole
room of Picasso, the superb
Bridgestone Museum of Art
is usually pretty quiet - all the
more reason to visit. As the heavyweight names listed suggest, the collection focuses on
Impressionism, but you can also enjoy many luminaries of early twentieth-century
European art and a highly rated sampler of Meiji-era Japanese paintings in Western style.
Kite Museum
ଡ଼ͷതؗ
, Tako no Hakubutsukan • 5F 1-12-10 Nihombashi, Chūō-ku • Mon-Sat 11am-5pm • ¥200 •
T
03 3271 2465,
W
tako.gr.jp •
Nihombashi station
Tucked behind the Coredo tower block - another shopping, dining and o
ce complex
- is the cluttered little
Kite Museum
; there's no English sign, but it's on the fifth floor
above the excellent
Taimeiken
restaurant (see p.147). Since 1977 the restaurant's former
owner has amassed over three hundred kites of every shape and size, from one no
bigger than a postage stamp to a monster 18m square. If you have kids in tow, they can
try making their own from bamboo and
washi
paper.
Nihombashi bridge
Chūō-dōri • Nihombashi or Mitsukoshimae stations
Lying at the start of the Tōkaidō, the great road running between Edo and Kyoto, and
literally meaning “Japan Bridge”, the arched red-lacquer-coated
bridge
originally on
this site marked not only the centre of Nihombashi but of all Japan. That 1603
construction - a favourite of
ukiyo-e
artists - has given way to the current stone
incarnation which, erected in 1911 and now with the Shuto Expressway passing over
it, hardly bears comparison to its seventeenth-century predecessor. Distances from
Tokyo are, however, still measured from a marker on the bridge, and it's worth
swinging by to see the bronze dragons and wrought-iron lamps that decorate it.
Mitsui Memorial Museum
ࡾҪه೦ඒज़ؗ
, Mitsui Kinen Bijutsukan • 7F Mitsui Main Building, 2-1-1 Nihombashi Muromachi, Chūō-ku • Tues-Sun 10am-5pm •
¥1000; ¥1200 for special exhibitions •
T
03 5777 8600,
W
mitsui-museum.jp • Mitsukoshimae station
Just north of the main branch of Mitsukoshi (see p.192), wood-panelled lifts rise to the
seventh-floor
Mitsui Memorial Museum
, where a superb collection spanning three hundred
years of Japanese and Asian art is on display. Put together by the Mitsui family (behind the
eponymous, enormously successful trading dynasty), changing exhibitions follow a
seasonal theme, and are mostly aimed at the connoisseur - you'll often see older Tokyoites
purring with pleasure at the pottery, calligraphy, jades or jewellery before them.
