Shinjuku may have more shops, more eating options and more people passing through its station every day. Shibuya and Harajuku, will always attract the younger crowds for whom mobile phones and hair dye carry outweigh all else, and of course Asakusa (see Issue II) will probably works its cultural wonders on more foreign and local tourists than Ginza will ever see, but there is something that little bit special about Ginza.

Only in Ginza does feudal-era history wrap itself in the world’s premier fashion brands. Only in Ginza does shopping become an art form practiced those wealthy enough to view work as alien a concept as humans venturing onto the surface of Mars, for only in Ginza when visiting Tokyo, will you have to consider contacting your financial planner ahead of buying a cup of coffee – or so goes the myth.

Running approximately eight large blocks east to west and around 10 blocks north to south, Ginza today carves out quite a chunk of the area immediately to the south of the Imperial Palace, but this was not always the case.

When the first inhabitants of note moved in, in 1612, they did so at the behest of the ruling Shogun who, in an attempt to keep his wealth and influence out of the clutches of his rivals in the Kansai area, moved his silver-coin mint to the neighborhood.

With ‘gin’ the Japanese term for ‘silver’, the name of the area was a natural follow-on in much the same form as can be seen when studying etymology in other Japanese place names.

For 260-years the area rotated around its resident silversmiths until in 1872, the fifth year of the Meiji-era (1868-1912) fire swept through the district laying waste to the majority of the then wooden structures.

As part of the reconstruction efforts, British architect Thomas Waters designed Georgian brick buildings in either two or three story form along with several other prominent landmarks dotted around the new capital.

Just over 50-years later, the majority of these buildings sadly fell victim to the 1923, Great Kanto Earthquake; many of the buildings erected thereafter again destroyed in the massive US Air Force fire-bombings of Tokyo in 1945.

As the area stands today, it is a complex mix of the old and the new with the few remaining brickwork buildings positioned oddly alongside some of the most modern, earthquake resistant structures on the planet today.

For most visitors though, what you see – on the surface – is what you get when visiting Ginza.

Home to most of the leading ‘brand’ companies in the world today – Tiffany, Hermes, Chanel, Coach, Cartier, and Louis Vuitton to name but a few – Ginza attracts more than its share of those content with parading up and down the boulevard like streets in order to be seen in possession of the season’s ‘must haves.’

Business, surprisingly perhaps does take place here and Ginza is home to its share of large companies – Nissan perhaps the biggest name firm based in the area – but for the huge majority of visitors, it is with a business transaction relating to a particular department store, boutique or restaurant in mind that they step off Japan’s oldest subway line; the Ginza Line, or one of the other four sub-terrain lines used to shuttle in the credit card toting masses.

Throughout the area, and especially so along the east - west running Chuo Dori (Ginza Street on most English language maps), lie many of the area’s shopping attractions with most of Japan’s top stores represented – Mitsukoshi (the eighth floor of which once served as a Catholic Church during the 1945-1952 US Occupation), Wako, and Matsuya the biggest names.

That said, all is not brand names and huge department stores for literally thousands of smaller shops and businesses offering a wide range of odds ‘n’ ends and culinary delights can be found scattered around – many of the eateries in the streets away from the main promenades oftentimes bursting at the seams with Japanese business folk taking advantage of meals as low as 350-400 yen during the working week; the heady days of 1980s expense account lunches now a distant memory.

By night, however, the Ginza changes, and the daytime blend of genuine-cum-acted-out sophistication enjoyed by one and all, side-by-side steps up a gear, along the way shedding many of those along for the ride during the daylight hours.

As the sun sinks and the shadows spread, Ginza becomes an area of high class entertainment in the form of top notch restaurants, nightclubs and hostess bars largely off limits to non-members and tourists. Back in the day, it was said that dropping several million (yen) on a good night out was something many companies were prepared to do – and did - frequently!

Times have changed now though, and for those on a limited budget, all is not lost as the past decade of economic belt tightening in Japan has led to more than a few of the cheap and cheerful izakaya (Japanese style pubs) chains setting up shop – albeit in the quieter streets leading off Chuo and Harumi Dori.

Shop around, view the menus (and prices) on display outside brightly lit doorways, and you won’t go far wrong. Far too many guide books lean towards the area being an out of touch, off limits district with window shopping the only possible pastime for the visiting foreigner when this is no longer – if it ever has been – the case.

You don’t have to go scrounging samples offered in the department store food courts as many suggest, although you are by all means entitled to try a few of the tasty morsels, and you need not contemplate bankruptcy after enjoying a coffee and cake – as is evidenced in Ian’s coverage of The Cafes of Ginza.

Ginza, like so much of Japan is what you make it, so enjoy its eccentricities, its excess of zeroes on price labels and its façade – for if one word above all others should be used to describe Ginza, it would be just that – façade.