Tokyo Drive [4K] Kayabacho to Shibamata (Chuo City to Katsushika City) JAPAN 2020 Driving Video

Let’s go for a ride! We hope to show you not only the tourist destinations but also the places only the locals visit.

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As always, thank you for coming along. Now, sit back, relax and enjoy the view!

Map: https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=1nBuAm0RYGaiw2m7uQW5yP1OaeGSn5VLg&ll=35.72050167901786%2C139.82968189999997&z=13

Shibamata – Delightful nostalgia—a retro neighborhood, brimming with charm

Just a few stops from Ueno in Tokyo’s Northeast, visiting Shibamata is like stepping back in time. In front of the station, you come face to face with a bronze statue of “Tora-san”, the lovable vagabond featured in 48 movies and fictionally homed here. The main street, lined with nostalgic sweet shops and restaurants, leads to Taishakuten Temple, with imposing wooden gates and spectacular carvings of the tale of The Lotus Sutra. Behind the temple, quiet streets reveal interesting museums, bath houses and a grand industrialist’s home where you can stop for tea.

How to Get to Shibamata
Access the area from Shibamata Station on the Keisei Kanamachi Line.

From Haneda Airport: One hour twenty minutes by train.
From Narita Airport: One hour thirty minutes by train.
From Shinjuku: Take the JR Yamanote Line to Nippori Station and transfer to the Keisei Mainline for Takasago Station. Transfer to the Keisei Kanamachi Line for Shibamata Station. Travel time: 65 minutes.
From Tokyo: Take the JR Yamanote Line to Nishi-nippori Station and transfer to the Tokyo Metro Chiyoda Line to Kanamachi Station. Transfer to the Keisei Kanamachi Line for Shibamata Station. Travel time: 55 minutes.

A temple town at leisure
Shibamata Sando, the main street lined with traditional shops selling fragrant toasted rice crackers and dango sweets made from rice flour, leads directly to the grand gate of Taishakuten Temple. Through the carved wooden Niten-mon gate, the sprawling temple complex is dominated by a huge, ancient pine tree. It’s well worth paying to see the intricate carvings that cover much of the main temple building, describing “The Lotus Sutra”. The ticket includes entry into the lovely inner gardens.

Shibamata’s favorite son
A hustler who was always unlucky in love, Tora-san was a famous character throughout Japan, and the series of 48 movies, dubbed “Otoko wa Tsurai Yo”, or “It’s tough being a man”, released between 1969 and 1995, showcased each prefecture. After every adventure, Tora-san came home to Shibamata and the family dango shop. While you may not be familiar with the movies, the Katsushika Shibamata Tora-san Museum offers fascinating insights into the history of this traditional working-class area and the film-making process, with dioramas and a finely crafted miniature of the town as it was in the 1960s.
https://www.gotokyo.org/en/destinations/northern-tokyo/shibamata/index.html

Otoko wa Tsurai yo (男はつらいよ, “It’s tough being a man”) is a Japanese film series starring Kiyoshi Atsumi as Tora-san (寅さん), a kind-hearted vagabond who is always unlucky in love. The series itself is often referred to as “Tora-san” by its fans. Spanning 48 installments released between 1969 and 1995, all of the Otoko wa tsurai yo films except episodes 3 (Azuma Morisaki) and 4 (Shun’ichi Kobayashi) were directed by Yōji Yamada, who also wrote (or co-wrote) all the screenplays.

Each film featured a different leading lady, called a Madonna, and a different region of Japan. (There were also episodes that featured scenes in Arizona and Vienna.) Two films were usually made each year between 1969 and 1989, one for summer and one for New Year release. From 1990 to 1995 only one film was made each year, for New Year release. AnimEigo released a boxset of the first four films in the United States in 2009 under the title “Tora-san”. The series holds the Guinness World Record for the longest-running movie series starring a single actor.
(Wikipedia)

Taishakuten (37:20)
This beautiful Buddhist temple is the heart of Shibamata. At the end of the main shopping street, the ornately carved Nitenmon Gate, built in 1896, welcomes visitors to the Shibamata Taishakuten temple grounds. The temple was established in 1629 and the current structure, built in 1929, managed to escape the WWII bombings.
https://www.gotokyo.org/en/spot/11/index.html

Narita International Airport Access Navigation
https://www.narita-airport.jp/en/access

Haneda Airport Information
https://tokyo-haneda.com/en/

Camera: GoPro HERO9 Black

Filmed in November 2020

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