Yanaka was little touched by the 1923 earthquake or war, so it remains a Tokyo neighborhood of small houses and unexpected twists and turns.
The Yanaka Ginza shopping street has intriguing little shops, street food, dogs, people and bikes all crammed together. Live Dog specializes in dog paraphernalia and the street has more dogs than we’ve seen anywhere else in Tokyo. There are, of course, a number of shops focused on cats. It’s one of those places you could poke around for hours. The people watching is fascinating.
There are quite a few Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines in Yanaka. We enjoyed the tranquility of this small temple.
Yanaka cemetery goes even further in the tranquil direction, if you don’t mind a bunch of crows speaking their universal language. The Tokugawa clan has a family plot where the last Shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, was buried in 1913.