Tokyo Times

The Shimanami Kaido is an expressway that connects Onomichi in Hiroshima prefecture, to the Shikoku city of Imabari. A series of roads that cross several islands, along with the bridges that connect them. It also incorporates a well marked and similarly well thought out cycle path that avoids the main thoroughfares and so covers more of the islands.

When sticking to the designated route, the cycle course is somewhere in the region of 70km, but with a couple of days to complete it, my friend and I did over double that, along with a fair bit of walking in between. An approach that allowed us to see even more of the islands, and in doing so, get something of a sense of life there. Or perhaps more accurately, a sense of how life once was, as unsurprisingly, the population in the area isn’t what it used to be.

The photos below then are what we saw on day 1. A really enjoyable exploration that provided much more to look at inland, rather than out to sea, whereas the resultant photos from the second and final day are more a mixture of the two.

Scenes from this old Tokyo neighbourhood have made numerous appearances on these pages, but every day is different, with new moments and faces, so here then are some more from a photowalk I conducted there last week.

There’s no shortage of photos on these pages of rundown old towns and resort spots. Such decline, however, isn’t only found in the country’s more rural areas, as Japan’s changing demographics mean more and more municipalities are slowly beginning to fade away.

Imabari in Ehime prefecture is one such story. It gained city status in 1920 and over the years gradually grew in size, but the population has steadily fallen since 1980, with the number of residents now down about 25 percent from that nearly half-century ago peak. A trend that will likely see the number of residents fall back to the city’s formation levels in the not too distant future.

All that said, such changes aren’t overly visible around the station area, but take a short walk and it’s all too evident what was, and now what is. An area where the people were lovely, but the number of empty properties quite prophetic — a situation perfectly summed up by the friendly button and sewing shop owner who kindly stood outside her family store for a portrait. It has been in operation for 75 years, and despite taking the business on as a second generation proprietor, the lady is resigned to being the last. And when the day eventually comes to shut up shop for the final time, the building will be unceremoniously locked up and left empty like the ones that already surround it.

The vast majority of my photographs show a slightly different side of Tokyo — one that’s older and decidedly more dilapidated than the shiny, modern areas that tend to be more regularly depicted.

Of late, however, I’ve had a good number of comments and messages about images that included graffiti — the common theme being that such sightings were very unusual in Japan. To be honest, there isn’t as much to be seen as in some cities, but that said, Tokyo does have its fair share of urban art. Both creative and otherwise. In the city’s more suburban areas too. So here then are photos from a walk that eventually ended in central Shinjuku, where the last shot was taken. A stroll that took in quite a few scenes that in some ways show a comparatively grittier, and more rundown side of the capital.