Taishakuten-Sando 帝釈天参道

Retro flair along a temple approach lined with old-school restaurants and shops

Hugging the banks of the Edo River, Taishakuten-Sando and the surrounding area are a pocket of Tokyo that time has forgotten, where retro flair and old-world charm make it feel like time has stopped.

Left untouched by the air raids of World War II, the 200-meter-long path which leads from Keisei Shibamata Station to the Shibamata Taishakuten temple is one of the city's best places to experience what Tokyo looked like before the modern era. The street retains a pleasantly nostalgic atmosphere, with shops selling specialties of Asakusa, wooden architecture and old-fashioned shops snuggled close together.

Taishakuten-Sando was the setting for one of Japan's most popular film series "Otoko wa Tsurai yo" (It's Tough Being a Man), which ran from 1969 until 1995. You will see plenty of older Japanese visitors taking pictures with the statue of Tora-san—the movie's comic hero—near the entrance to the street. Snap a picture or two as you walk around and take in the old downtown atmosphere, regarded as an important cultural landscape of the country, and wander the roads leading to Shibamata Taishakuten Temple.