The Yamanote line station of Hamamatsucho is mostly known as the exchange point for the Tokyo Monorail, the Alweg train that has been carrying passengers to Haneda airport since 1964. But there is plenty of other things to see, as this is one of the old neighborhoods of Tokyo. Read on to find out more.
The Hamamatsucho area sits between two traditional gardens, and it is the Yamanote line station closest to the Tokyo Tower. But this is one of the old neighborhoods of Tokyo, and it has a lot to offer.
Tokyo Tower itself, for instance. This red-and-white Eiffel tower copy was built as a broadcasting tower, hence the colors. You will see similarly colored towers all over Japan, although few as graceful as Tokyo Tower.
But while it literally towered over its surroundings when built, Tokyo Tower is now towered over by tall buildings, relegated to special reserve status, and used mostly as an exhibition center, observation platform, and tourist trap.
The tower was decommissioned when the Tokyo Sky Tree was completed, and the broadcast functions have been moved to the Tokyo Sky Tree, the tallest broadcast tower in the world. The signal from the Sky Tree literally reaches all of Tokyo.
You may ask why you need a broadcast tower at all in the age of the Internet, but it has to do with emergency preparedness, when the big earthquake hits Tokyo (most people will say ”when”, not ”if”), or if Mt Fuji has an eruption (if not when), then the fiber cables carrying the Internet will be in a shambles, but the radio broadcasts will still work.
If you walk eastwards from the Tokyo Tower, you come to Shiba Koen, a park dominated by the Zojo-ji. This used to be one of two main temples of the Tokugawa clan, who ruled Japan as shoguns for more than 300 years; six of the shoguns are buried on the grounds of the temple.
Unfortunately, you can not see their beautiful mausoleums anymore. Most of the Zoji-ji was burned down in the fire bombings during WWII, and the temple buildings have been gradually rebuilt. Only the main and very impressive gate remains, making it the oldest wooden structure in Tokyo, dating from 1622.
The gate to the Zoji-ji purifies sinners.
If you pass through it, you will be liberated from the three deadly sins of Buddhism. More importantly for modern photo-conscious tourists, you can get nice pictures of the gate with Tokyo Tower in the background. But do not miss the grounds. Not much remains of the splendid temple that the shoguns built, but you will find the grounds full of small statues, dressed like Jizo statues in red aprons and red caps.
The branch of Buddhism to which Zoji-ji belongs venerates Jizo, the protector of children, and each statue represents a stillborn, aborted, or miscarried child, whose parents have set up the statue to ease its passage through the land of the dead.
If you continue in a straight line from the Zoji-ji main gate, you will pass through the Hamamatsucho shopping and entertainment district. This is pleasant enough, but not particularly remarkable in terms of the restaurants you will find there. But at the northern end of the restaurant area, perched on the tallest mountain in all the 23 wards of Tokyo, all of 26 meters! — is Atago Shrine, built to protect the city from fire.
Tokugawa Ieyasu prayed here, and he probably took the Steps of Success, a steep staircase leading up to the shrine itself. Climbing (and it really is climbing) all 86 steps will guarantee that your endeavor goes smoothly. And there is another reason to climb to the top: the view of Tokyo Tower, together with the shrine buildings, will look crazy cool on Instagram.
A few hundred meters to the south is another shrine, more than a thousand years old. This shrine is not venerating some local spirit but Amaterasu, the Japanese sun goddess. But apart from this, the shrine was the home of the Edo Lottery. Public lotteries were common in the Edo era, occasionally fixed by greedy operators, but mostly honest. As a result, there are plenty of places in the shrine to pray and improve your luck.
This area also has its own signature dish, Shiba-Daimon Soba, a kind of thick buckwheat noodles with a sweet soy sauce. There are several restaurants that serve the dish, which goes back to the 1790s.
Continue along the same line, and you will come to Hamamatsucho Station. There is a subway station under the street perpendicular to it, Daimon, which means ”Great Gate”. This alternative name for the Hamamatsucho area and the gate was the city gate located near Shiba Daijingu. Today, nothing is left but the name.
The Hamamatsucho station is a connection point for several JR lines, including the Yamanote line, and the Asakusa and Oedo subway lines. But the main claim to communications fame of the Hamamatsucho station is the Tokyo Monorail.
Hamamatsucho is the only Yamanote line station where you can change to the Tokyo monorail, and one of two in Tokyo where you can change from a JR train to monorail (the other is Tachikawa). There are several monorails in the greater Tokyo area, but Tokyo Monorail, which runs from Hamamatsucho to Haneda Airport, is the oldest, constructed for the Tokyo Olympic Games in 1964, when Haneda was the only airport in Tokyo and international travel was considerably scarcer than today.
It has aged gracefully, and the Alweg design with a car that straddles a single rail makes for a smooth ride, even if there are comparatively fewer trains than the regular Keikyu line trains (which originate at several different locations, including Narita Airport).
For train buffs, those interested in Olympic history, or those who just want a cool ride, it is worth going to the Keibajo station, the main horse racing location in Tokyo. Not for the horse races, but in winter for the very elaborate illuminations. If you are not going to the airport, go back to Hamamatsucho and go out through the southeastern exit.
Here, sandwiched between the Shinkansen tracks and the highway, is a small traditional-style garden. The Kyu-Shiba-rikyū Gardens were constructed in the late 17th century. It is one of two remaining actual samurai palace gardens in Tokyo (the other is Koshikawa Korakuen near Tokyo Dome).
The garden, built on reclaimed land, has features modelled after famous Chinese gardens of the time. This was before Japan closed its borders to foreigners, but the Chinese features are done with a distinctly Japanese flair
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