My neighbourhood, Ishiwara 2-chome (district)
A word about Japanese addresses - don't try to make sense of it, unless if you work for the postal services.
Firstly, house numbers are not in sequential order. On our maiden trip to Japan, right after getting off the train from the airport, we wandered the streets of Osaka in the night looking for our AirBnB apartment for a good 45 minutes because we could not figure out where building 31 was hiding next to building 30. We went round every corner we could humanly possible, but it still eluded us. We asked one of the friendly night guards of one of the apartment blocks, who radio-ed his colleague, and they still could not give us any clue. Towing our 2 luggage and 2 kids along, we finally found it on the other side of the overhead pedestrian bridge, nowhere near where it was supposed to be.
Addresses in Japan are also written in the opposite way of what we're used to. It starts with the postal code, prefecture (県 ken), municipality (市 shi, or wards 区 ku in Tokyo), subdivision (町 machi or cho), district (丁目 chome), block (番 ban) and finally, house number (号 go).
Large murals of sumo greets you at the JR Ryogoku station
My area is also known as Ryogoku and is most well-known for sumo. It is the historic center of Japanese wrestling, and is home to the stadium which hosts some of the biggest matches. During the Edo period (1603-1868), it was also the biggest town in Edo (Tokyo in modern day). It is said to retain some of the traditional feel of the yesteryears, but I have yet to come across any evidence of that. What is sure, though, just a street or two away from the Ryogoku train stations, are signs of genuine local life, with moms ferrying their young in precarious yet comfortable bicycle child seats, men bent over their work in dimly-lit workshops of some indecipherable nature, and shopkeepers bustling about in tiny shops filled with the mundane fundamentals.
The Sumida-Hokusai Museum has a unique design with "slits" in the building to allow for accessibility from every direction
Ryogoku is in the Sumida ward, whose most famous son is Katsushika Hokusai. At least that is the name that stuck, for he had taken numerous names throughout his illustrious (literally) career spanning almost 90 years. Another almost-centennial who puts us all young people to shame (I'm alluding to the current Malaysian PM, of course).
Getting ready to step on Hokusai's bridge
While Hokusai experimented with various styles, it is his ukiyo-e (literally: paintings of a floating world, but generally refers to Japanese woodblock paintings that depicts life during the Edo period) that he is most associated with, and for which he charted new directions for generations of ukiyo-e artists to come.
Hokusai's most famous works: The Great Wave Off Kanagawa & The Red Mt Fuji
After spending 2 hours at the Sumida Hokusai Museum which displayed original works by Hokusai, his disciples and other painters, including the other ukiyo-e master, Hiroshige, I can confidently tell you that I am now adept at identifying Hokusai's works from the rest. His works exudes life: the people are cheeky, their bodies expressive, the landscape is moving, the strokes are fine but confident, the colours are vibrant. He continued painting up to his death at the age of 88, accompanied by his daughter, Oei, also a painter herself.
Watching the master in action
"When I was 50 I had published a universe of designs, but all I have done before the age of 70 is not worth bothering with. At 75, I'll have learned something of the pattern of nature, of animals, of plants, of trees, birds, fish and insects. When I am 80, you will see real progress. At 90, I shall have cut my way deeply into the mystery of life itself. At 100 I shall be a marvelous artist. At 110, everything I create - a dot, a line - will jump to life as never before." Hokusai
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