One of the most beautiful streets of the old Tokyo, Shitamachi-Naka Street, is… conserved in a museum: the Edo Tokyo Open Air Museum, located in Koganei. This is not a real street, it is a collection of beautiful buildings and other structures from Edo and from the old Tokyo, but they are so perfectly arranged that Shitamachi-Naka Street is one of my all time favorite places in Japan.

I visited this museum many times… and I’m not the only one. Hayao Miyazaki, the famous Japanese anime director, once declared that he often visited the museum, the building on this street inspiring him to create the town from Spirited Away (Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi).

Here is the Hanaichi Flower Shop, a building from 1927. Initially located in Kanda, Tokyo, it was used as a flower shop until 1991, when was relocated in the museum (opened two years later). The walls are covered in copper plates - a fire prevention technique - and the copper plates are decorated with flowers: chrysanthemums, peonies and cherry blossoms:

Edo Tokyo Open Air Museum, Koganei, Tokyo

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Yesterday’s Japan Photo: Japanese mascots, Samurai Cat mascot train