Kappabashi-dori, also known just as
Kappabashi or
Kitchen Town, is a street in
Tokyo, officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan and is located on the eastern side of the main island Honshū. The twenty-three special wards of Tokyo, each governed as a city, cover the area that was once the city of Tokyo in the eastern part of the prefecture, totaling over 8 million people....
between
Uenois a district in Tokyo's Taitō Ward, best known as the home of Ueno Station and Ueno Park. Ueno is also home to some of Tokyo's finest cultural sites, including the Tokyo National Museum, the National Museum of Western Art, and the National Science Museum, as well as a major public concert hall...
and
Asakusais a district in Taitō, Tokyo, Japan, most famous for the Sensō-ji, a Buddhist temple dedicated to the bodhisattva Kannon. There are several more temples in Asakusa, as well as various festivals.- History :...
which is almost entirely populated with shops supplying the
restaurantA restaurant prepares and serves food and drink to customers. Meals are generally served and eaten on premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services...
trade. These shops sell everything from
mass-producedMass production is the production of large amounts of standardized products, including and especially on assembly lines...
crockery, restaurant
furnitureFurniture is the mass noun for the movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating and sleeping in beds, to hold objects at a convenient height for work using horizontal surfaces above the ground, or to store things...
,
ovenAn oven is an enclosed compartment for heating, baking or drying. It is most commonly used in cooking and pottery. Ovens used in pottery are also known as kilns...
s and decorations, through to esoteric items such as the
plasticPlastic is the general common term for a wide range of synthetic or semisynthetic organic amorphous solid materials suitable for the manufacture of industrial products...
display
foodFood is any substance, usually composed of carbohydrates, fats, proteins and water, that can be eaten or drunk by an animal, including humans, for nutrition or pleasure. Items considered food may be sourced from plants, animals or other categories such as fungus or fermented products like alcohol...
(
sampuru) found outside
Japanese restaurantThe modern term "Japanese cuisine" means traditional-style Japanese food, similar to what already existed before the end of national seclusion in 1868...
s.
The street is also an off-beat
touristTourism is travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes. The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people who "travel to and stay in places outside their usual environment for more than twenty-four hours and not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other...
destination (see
http://wikitravel.org/en/Tokyo/Asakusa#Buy).
The street's name is believed to come from either the
kappa (raincoats) of nearby residents which were hang out to dry on the bridge, or from a merchant named Kihachi Kappaya who funded the project to build Shinhorikawa River for water management.
Discussion
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Kappabashi-dori, also known just as
Kappabashi or
Kitchen Town, is a street in
Tokyo, officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan and is located on the eastern side of the main island Honshū. The twenty-three special wards of Tokyo, each governed as a city, cover the area that was once the city of Tokyo in the eastern part of the prefecture, totaling over 8 million people....
between
Uenois a district in Tokyo's Taitō Ward, best known as the home of Ueno Station and Ueno Park. Ueno is also home to some of Tokyo's finest cultural sites, including the Tokyo National Museum, the National Museum of Western Art, and the National Science Museum, as well as a major public concert hall...
and
Asakusais a district in Taitō, Tokyo, Japan, most famous for the Sensō-ji, a Buddhist temple dedicated to the bodhisattva Kannon. There are several more temples in Asakusa, as well as various festivals.- History :...
which is almost entirely populated with shops supplying the
restaurantA restaurant prepares and serves food and drink to customers. Meals are generally served and eaten on premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services...
trade. These shops sell everything from
mass-producedMass production is the production of large amounts of standardized products, including and especially on assembly lines...
crockery, restaurant
furnitureFurniture is the mass noun for the movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating and sleeping in beds, to hold objects at a convenient height for work using horizontal surfaces above the ground, or to store things...
,
ovenAn oven is an enclosed compartment for heating, baking or drying. It is most commonly used in cooking and pottery. Ovens used in pottery are also known as kilns...
s and decorations, through to esoteric items such as the
plasticPlastic is the general common term for a wide range of synthetic or semisynthetic organic amorphous solid materials suitable for the manufacture of industrial products...
display
foodFood is any substance, usually composed of carbohydrates, fats, proteins and water, that can be eaten or drunk by an animal, including humans, for nutrition or pleasure. Items considered food may be sourced from plants, animals or other categories such as fungus or fermented products like alcohol...
(
sampuru) found outside
Japanese restaurantThe modern term "Japanese cuisine" means traditional-style Japanese food, similar to what already existed before the end of national seclusion in 1868...
s.
The street is also an off-beat
touristTourism is travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes. The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people who "travel to and stay in places outside their usual environment for more than twenty-four hours and not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other...
destination (see
http://wikitravel.org/en/Tokyo/Asakusa#Buy).
The street's name is believed to come from either the
kappa (raincoats) of nearby residents which were hang out to dry on the bridge, or from a merchant named Kihachi Kappaya who funded the project to build Shinhorikawa River for water management. However, due to the homophone with the popular mythical creature, Kappa, the group of shops along the street officially adopted kappa as its mascot. Images of the kappa appear on shops along the street and web pages.
http://www.kappabashi.or.jp/home/history.html
External links