Photos

You know those Japanese woodblock prints from 300-400 years ago where you see people crossing an archetypical Japanese-style bridge? You know, the wooden, arched bridges like you see in Japanese gardens? Well, very often the bridge depicted in those prints was Nihonbashi Bridge -- it was the gateway to Tokyo. This is what Nihonbashi looks like today. As you can see it's a little more modern now, made of stone and accommodating four lanes of traffic. This one was built in 1911 and has fancy light posts like you see here. I imagine it must have looked pretty terrific at first. But now with the expressway traveling overhead since the 1960's, it's not something most people even think about photographing.


Although the original is long gone, you can see a replica of it in the Edo-Tokyo Museum which is just 3 or 4 kilometers away.