Ameyoko Kappabashi Ueno

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. 河童 The Kappapedia .
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Ameyoko Street in Ueno

***** Location: Japan
***** Season:
***** Category: Humanity

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Explanation

Ameyoko あめよこ (アメ横) is a famous shopping street running from Ueno station to Okachimachi in Tokyo.
Ameyoko street market.Ameyoko shopping alley.

It is a MUST for the shopping for New Years items, everything is cheap ...
After WWII it was a place for smuggled itmes, and also a famous sweet shop, ameya 飴屋 was in the area. AME also was an abbreviation for AMERICA in these days.

There is also a lot of other discounted stuff there. There is second-hand fashion, super bargains and a lot of candy! It is a heaven for bargain shoppers.



Officially the name is Ameya Yokocho, ameya yokochoo アメ屋横丁.
yokochoo is the normal name for a small alley.

CLICK for more English information !



Ameyokoyaki アメ横焼き Ameyoko-style pancake
. . . CLICK here for Photos !


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Close to Ameyoko is the famous

Asakusa KAPPABASHI 東京都 かっぱばし/ かっぱ河 / 合羽橋

where you can buy all kinds of wax or plastic replica food.
They are used by restaurants and shops to decorate their windows and inform customers about their dishes. This is very useful for foreigners to see what is served in a restaurant.



. . . CLICK here for Photos !

. Kappadera かっぱ寺 Kappa temple - 曹源寺 Sogen-Ji .
and the legend of Kappa Kawataro Kihachi.


道具街, the kitchen district
In Kappabashi, they also sell all the equipment and utensils you need for a restaurant and kitchen, pots and pans, chopsticks and plates ... you name it.


Gujo Hachiman Town 郡上八幡 in Gifu is a famous producer of these food replicas. There are still four factories which produce these plastic items.
Iwasaki Mokei in Gujo was one of the first to produce these sample foods since 1932.




Kappabashi-dori, also known just as
Kappabashi (Japanese: 合羽橋) or Kitchen Town,
is a street in Tokyo between Ueno and Asakusa which is almost entirely populated with shops supplying the restaurant trade.
- reference - Kappabashi -



source : R on facebook
Seen by a friend in Kappabashi


. Asakusa Kannon　Temple 浅草観音 .
Temple Sensooji　浅草寺 Senso-Ji

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Asakusa and the Kaminari Okoshi sweets
"waking up the thunder"
made by Tokiwadoo

. . . CLICK here for Photos !

Kaminari-okoshi is a snack popular for its crispy texture. It was originally sold by street venders near the Kaminarimon gate in Asakusa sometime in the mid Edo period. Kaminari-okoshi is made by roasting steamed sweet rice to pop, mixing them with other ingredients such as peanuts, and forming them into a shape with sugar and mizuame. It is believed that the name "okoshi" came from a Japanese verb "okosu," which means "to establish" a family or a name, and therefore the snack was considered as a good-luck item. It is known as one of popular Asakusa souvenirs today.
source : 　www.tourism.metro.tokyo.jp

Further Reference

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Asakusa nikomidoori 浅草煮込み通り street with shops of nikomi stew in Asakusa
浅草2丁目の「煮込み通り」

浅草煮込み通り

CLICK here for PHOTOS !




Ningyooyaki 人形焼, 人形焼き figure waffles


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Akihabara, the Electric Town
originally
Akibahara with Shrine Akiba Jinja at its center.

Some shops have Oden hodgepodge in cans.

Maid-Coffeeshops. They welcome you : O-kaeri nasai.
Maids write a greeting with ketchup on your omuraisu omelette.
meidokissa, メイド喫茶 maid kissa
meidokafee メイドカフェ
meedokissa メードﾞ喫茶
. . . CLICK here for Photos !



LaoX features a large store with items for tourists.

Bridge Manseibashi　万世橋
niku no mansei　肉の万世 the first to make kurokke, croquettes.


Agemanjuu 揚げまんじゅう / 揚げ饅頭
normal manjuu with koshi-an bean paste, deep-fried afterwards for a crispy taste.
. . . CLICK here for Photos !

Shotaro Ikenami (Ikenami Shootaroo) wrote about Mukashi no Aji in Edo/Tokyo, discribing the restaurants and eateries of the times.


Jinbocho jinboochoo 神保町 district with books sold.
Part of Kanda.

Inventer of Hiyashi Chuka ... gansoo hiyashi chuuka
from a Chinese who got the inspiration from the cold soba noodles of Japan. He arranged his noodles with vegetables and chicken meat like a Mount Fuji on your plate. His son now cares for the restaurant.
Chinatown in Jinbocho has disappeared, now Chinatown is in Yokohama.



Kanda Daruma 神田だるま
shop which sells taiyaki waffles in a wrapper with Daruma





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Things found on the way


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HAIKU



ameyoko ni matsutake tataki uri ni keri

at Ameyoko
they sell matsutake mushrooms
at such reduced price !

Umi no Ko san . 海の子 さん

tataki-uri, the vendor hits his board with a stick and reduces the price with every slab. It is a kind of backward auction and raises the attention of all other buyers around !


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. Ueno 上野 Ueno district - Taito .

- - - - - Kobayashi Issa in Ueno -

夕涼や草臥に出る上野山
yuusuzu ya kutabire ni deru Ueno yama

evening cool--
weariness sets in
on Ueno Hill
Tr. David Lanoue

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露三粒上野の蝉の鳴出しぬ
tsuyu mi tsubu ueno no semi no nakidashinu

three drops of dew
and the Ueno cicadas
are crying already
Tr. Chris Drake


This humorous mid-autumn hokku was written in the eighth month shortly after Issa returned to the city of Edo on Sept. 23, 1812 after making a trip to his hometown to try to negotiate with his half brother about their mutual inheritance. Ueno was an area of Edo with many temples, ponds, and trees that was famous as a good place to hear birds sing, so presumably it was also a place where many insects could be heard. Perhaps the cries of the cicadas in Ueno seemed much stronger to Issa than the weaker cries of the cicadas he'd been hearing in his highland hometown, where the air was probably several degrees cooler than in lowland Edo.

The three drops of dew seem to be hyperbole. Adult cicadas drink tree and bush sap, but in East Asia it was widely believed that cicadas live by drinking dew on the leaves and branches of trees and bushes. In the hokku, almost as soon as the early evening dew begins to appear in Ueno, the cicadas drink it, gain strength, and begin to cry out vigorously and loudly. It's common for cicadas to begin crying intensely at the end of the day, but Issa is amazed by the way the vigorous Ueno cicadas suddenly and almost in unison begin to create loud, throbbing waves of sound even before the light begins to fade. Perhaps these lively cicadas, which still show few signs of weakening in autumn, remind him of the brash, loud, assertive way commoners in Edo live their lives.

Cicadas are above all a summer image, but there are many different types, and some appear in spring (haru no semi), while many others (aki no semi) continue to cry out vigorously until the end of the eighth month (September). Some cicadas were even known to cry in the tenth month (November). Lunar autumn starts with the seventh month, which usually begins in the first week of August, and many kinds of cicadas in Edo/Tokyo don't begin to cry loudly until late July, and they continue to cry loudly until mid-autumn or later. These autumn cicadas are not long-lived (they only live 1-2 weeks) but simply cicadas of types that mature and mate later in the year. Likewise, dew is primarily an autumn image, but spring dew (haru no tsuyu) and summer dew (natsu no tsuyu) are also fairly common, depending on the context in the hokku.

Chris Drake

. Kobayashi Issa 小林一茶 in Edo .


- More about Ueno in the Edopedia
. Ueno 上野 (Taito ward) .

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Related words

***** WASHOKU : General Information


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