Things To Do In Sugamo
It is known as ”Harajuku for grandmas”, but Sugamo is not just a stop on the Yamanote line, it is one of the most vibrant places in north central Tokyo — and a paradise for those who want to experience what Tokyo was like a couple of generations ago.
Say Sugamo and there is a gleam in the eyes of long-time Tokyo residents and natives. This station on the Yamanote line is known as Harajuku of the Grandmothers, mostly for its Showa-style fashion stores.
Sugamo is one of the stops along the Yamanote line
The main claim to fame of Sugamo is the Jizodori shopping street, which starts one block from exit A4 if the subway station. Make sure not to start at the wrong side of Nakasendo (route 17), as the easiest way of crossing the road is going back down into the subway station.
Old Nakasendo Road
The shopping street is located on the old Nakasendo, which was one of the five great roads leading out of Edo. These roads were paved and surrounded by trees, and led from one checkpoint to another. Travel in the Edo-era Japan was possible only if you had a pass stamped by the office of the local damiyo, or feudal lord. Such passes were given to official members of entourages, couriers, merchants, and people on religious pilgrimages — which became a popular way of sightseeing and visiting different parts of the country. On foot, because horses were reserved for the samurai, and wagons would not have worked on the paving.
The Nakasendo is one of two roads which led to Kyoto from Edo. It was an inland road and the longer of the two, but there was no need to ford any rivers, and in summer it would have been considerably cooler, making it popular among travelers. This is why it starts in Sugamo and leads north over what would have been farmland during the Edo era.
Shopping Street Today
The other road was the Tokaido road, roughly where todays Shinkansen trains run, along the seashore to Kyoto and Osaka. The Nakasendo, however, leads inland across the Kanto plain before veering south in Gunma and passing through Nagano, Gifu, and Shiga before entering Kyoto.
Showa-style buildings abound along the Jizodori.
Today the shopping street is filled with stores and restaurants aimed at local residents — but also people who come visiting from all over Tokyo and beyond, and who want to experience a slice of bygone Japan. In keeping with the street style, the stores along the street are traditional, and the Showa retro stretches all the way to Itabashi. The shops thin out considerably as you pass the Koshinzuka subway station, however.
Showa-Style Shopping
Many of the stores and restaurants not only keep Showa-style offerings, but also Showa-style pricing, making this a cheaper shopping and eating experience than many other places in Tokyo. Inflation is slowly biting in Japan too, and while prices were largely unchanged in many areas from the end of the cheap money of the ”bubble era” until the beginning of the 2020’s, inflation is making a slow comeback and prices are inching up — even in the old peoples areas.
Sugamo is known as “Harajuku for Grandmas” for its Showa-style shopping
Japan is famously full of old people, and the population pyramid keeps skewing towards advanced age. Low birthrates and the well-known Japanese longevity do not help. Salaries and pensions are not keeping up, but often foreign visitors make up for the difference. Take the chance to experience the traditional Japanese style before the shopkeepers and restaurant owners retire, but do not expect any English menus or even English knowledge, beyond the most rudimentary.
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