The Edo Museum in Tokyo faces a daunting task. How does one take the largest, most complicated city in the developed world, and make sense of it? To show any meaningful detail, maps and scale models must be so large, that visitors sometimes need to walk over glass floors to take them in.
What we now call Tokyo was once the Second City of Japan; a merchant city called Edo, built on the banks of the Sumida River. When the capital moved to Edo for political reasons, the shogunate built a new palace to the west, and the centre of the city shifted with it.
The museum occupies a spot in Shitomachi, which was old downtown area. The gentleman with the backpack stands on the museum site, in more ways than one.
The arts flourished alongside commerce, especially the visual arts. The world's first books with colour illustration were printed here, and thus manga was born.
A little off the beaten track for most tourists, but well worth a visit. This last bit has wandered of the subject, hasn't it?
