Tokyo Times

Photographs from a small group of islands

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A tourist-free traditional Tokyo wedding

Rainy season, it has to be said, isn’t the nicest time of year. The humidity ramps up enormously, and, as the name suggests, it tends to rain rather a lot. Yet despite such unpleasantness, June is a popular month to get married in, and probably just as popular as a venue is Tokyo’s Meiji Shrine. A money making machine that at the weekend sees up to around 15 weddings in a single day.

Given the surroundings and the ceremonial outfits, the public procession element of each service is quite the spectacle. An aspect that used to garner a huge amount of attention due to the shrine being a popular tourist spot, but it was just me and a young family watching on Saturday. One of the many very visible changes of the world we now live in. A new world in which this young couple are starting a new life in. But it’s a journey they are embarking on together, and one that started out in some style to say the least.

a tourist-free meiji shrine wedding

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A window into a changing Tokyo world?

Things change a lot in Tokyo. Buildings go up and down, and businesses come and go. Perhaps none quite as starkly as this previously featured old bar.

Sometimes, however, the more things change, the more they somehow remain the same. Like the place below that I first photographed almost 4 years ago.

A window into a changing Tokyo world

And then once again last weekend. It’s now different, but also the same, as well as similarly hinting at some kind of unknown story.

A window into a changing Tokyo world

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A terrifically askew old Tokyo tofu shop

The old tofu shop below has appeared on Tokyo Times before, but back then its incredibly large signboard was still proudly intact.

Now why something so impressive is no longer in situ is a mystery. A typhoon did strike the capital around the same time period, so that could have damaged it, or maybe even ripped it off the roof. Who knows? Yet whatever did happen, it has never been put back or restored, and instead, a spot of renovation has taken place. Work that, without the sign as a visual decoy, emphasises just how fantastically skew-whiff everything really is.

a crooked and askew old Tokyo tofu shop