Settling in to Shiinamachi (Rylee)

It has nearly been a week since I have arrived in Tokyo and settled down in Rikkyo’s housing in Shiinamachi. It is quite surprising how quiet and homey this neighborhood feels even though it is only a 15-minute walk away from one of the busiest places in Tokyo. It contains all of your small-town amenities such as a barber, drug store, a few restaurants, a produce grocer and of course all of the convenience stores and chain establishments. My apartment resides on one of the main streets going directly north from Shiinamachi station. This allows me to walk through the neighborhood’s center and see what’s happening on my way to and from the dorm. The more time I spend witnessing the town do its daily routine and visit the stores the more I feel like I am a citizen of Shiinamachi.

My first map

My initial map is very lacking in detail on streets and locally owned stores. Streets on one hand seem to spiral off into random directions as they very rarely follow the four cardinal directions which makes my walk to Rikkyo a bit complicated if I want to take the shortest route since I cannot just walk East. Stores are something that I discover each day. I see their signs but many of them I do not know their function. Just recently I found out a place named Red ended up being a barber even though I thought it was a bar with its neon lights and tinted windows.

Street to the station

A festival was held last Saturday evening, and all of the shops and vendors were open for regular business and were also selling food and toys in stalls, allowing me to see much of the insides of stores and what they were selling. I am glad to see that many family-owned places are still open. In the United States similar stores would be out of business due to fierce competition from major chains. It surprises me that they can coexist to a better degree than the U.S. even though Japan also has major shopping chains and convenience stores.

Saturday night festival

For each day I walk around Shiinamachi my mental map of the town grows, however there are physical limits I set in place that determine the boundaries of Shiinamachi. The busy avenue to the east and north sets the barrier between busy Ikebukuro and calm Shiinamachi. However, I have not traveled too far South or West as it is more residential areas. As a matter of fact, I don’t know what to make of that area as I have no bike and friends tell me there is not too much in those directions within walking distance. The boundary between Kanamecho and Shiinamachi also seems to be nonexistent. I assume stations are named after their neighborhoods in most cases, but Kanamecho to the North is right on my boundary of the two avenues as it is a subway station underneath the busy road. There seems to be no town center for a subway station unlike a train station. It makes you wonder what a community or town in Tokyo needs to be put on the map.