Japan 2025: Nihonbashi and Ginza shopping malls

Tokyo hit a high of 95 degrees farenheit today, with 77% humidity. (Our son in Dallas can relate.) Our planned walking tour of Nihonbashi and neighboring Ginza was adjusted to include locations with *agressive* AC. Hence, our tour of exquisite shopping malls in these upscale neighborhoods of Tokyo, with one stop to appreciate a historic bridge.

Let's start in Nihonbashi. Here we found Coredo Nihonbashi, a commerical complex with restaurants and shops and the required AC. We were going to get espresso from the funky truck outside, but the AC called to us. We ended up in a traditional Japanese restaurant for an early lunch. The translated menu was a plus. We ordered using the QR code. I had chicken, eggs, and rice, plus soba noodles, and Steven had tempura with udon noodles. Total cost of lunch was $25, including beverages. Take that Bay Area!

Then we meandered to the Nihonbashi Bridge. The original bridge was built in 1603 of wood by the Edo era shogunate and was the starting point of five roads in Japan. The current bridge was built in 1911, the 20th iteration. Despite its historic significance, it is now is now covered by a rather ugly overhead highway. The bridge is also next to a subway entrance, and as the humidity was wilting us, we decided to take a train to Ginza in search of more AC.

Ginza is full of famous global brands. Name a luxury brand and it is here.(Hermes? Ferragamo? Kate Spade? Cartier? Mikimoto? Chanel? Check, check, check, etc.) We wandered into several multi-story shopping malls for the AC, yes, but were delighted with what we found. We headed to the basement, the traditional source of all things gourmet.

Perfect vegetables and fruits, including unusual mushrooms. Rows of sweets. Ice cream. Clotted cream. Honey. Expensive sake. Things that swim in the ocean. But all for take away. It is considered ill manners to eat what you buy in a department store. You must save that for restaurants. We did take a break in Capital Coffee for some iced coffee with soft serve ice cream. Unlike Starbucks around the corner, we struggled a bit with the menu, until we discovered the English menu hidden under the Japanese menu. Then we struggled further to place our order. But it was delish. And authentic.

After this beverage break, we endured the sidewalk oven of Giza for another 6 minutes until we entered my favorite mall, the Ginza 6. Here we found the Big Cat Bang art installation by Kenji Yanobe.

It turns out ordinary cats came to us from outerspace, where they grew weary and began to perish before making the intergalactic leap to Earth. Now the space cats hang in mid-air in the celestory of Ginza 6's upscale shopping mall. Here also lies the Tusutaya Bookstore, stuffed full of Japanese art books, with some in both English and Japanese. One book contained pictures of fancy goldfish in small wooden boxes. Yes, just that. I trust the goldfish were only placed in small wooden boxes (with water) for the time needed to take the shot.