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.

Home to the most expensive square metre of real estate in the country, infamously overpriced cups of coffee and hostess clubs where splashing half a million yen on a bottle of bubbly is par for the course, Ginza is the place Tokyo’s seriously wealthy go to drop serious cash. The good news though is that you don’t need to be rich to hang out there.

Department stores
The best time to discover Ginza is on the weekend, when the crowds come out and much of Chuo-dori - the main street running through Ginza - is closed off to traffic for the afternoon. With the weekday cars replaced by a smattering of street performers and the occasional outdoor café, the atmosphere is ideal for strolling between the area’s department stores. And Ginza has plenty of them to stroll between.

On one four-block stretch of Chuo-dori alone, Ginza can boast Matsuya, Matsuzakaya, Ginza Wako, Ginza Core, and a branch of Mitsukoshi, the flagship store of which is only another 20 minutes down the road in Nihonbashi. A couple of streets over to where Ginza begins to blur into the Hibiya and Yurakucho areas on Sotobori-dori, there is also a Printemps, a Seibu and two Hankyu department stores. They all add up to a whole lot of shopping, yet shopping is only part of what Ginza’s department stores are about.

Besides being great for checking out the latest and often obscenely priced fashions, Japan’s department stores – and Ginza’s in particular - are the best places to sample all manner of Japanese food. Head to the basement floors of any department store and you’ll find an impressive range of groceries, takeout lunches, regional specialities and deli goods, as well as a fine selection of both Japanese and Western sweets. Although the prices tend to be on the high side, the quality is always good and many of the stalls keep samples on the counter for passers-by to try.

photo: Rob Goss

If the samples leave you hungry for more, the upper floors of most department stores (Mitsukoshi Ginza is a restaurant-less exception) tend to be exclusively for restaurants and typically house a mixture suitable for most budgets – from staples like tonkatsu or ramen that will set you back around 1,000 yen, to high-end Chinese or Japanese restaurants where 1,000 yen won’t even get you a glass of water. As a word of caution, it is worth noting that between around noon and 2pm the restaurant floors get very busy on both weekdays and weekends and you may have to indulge in the Japanese pastime of queuing for a table if you want to eat around that time. If possible, plan for an early or late lunch or pick up something from the basement and walk over to Hibiya Park for a picnic.

Boutiques and Japanese brands
Beyond the department stores, Ginza’s streets read like a “who’s-who” of haute couture, with Cartier, Chanel and Hermes being just three of the major brands with prominent stores on or around Chuo-dori and Harumi-dori to add to the outlets they also have in many of the department stores. Thanks to an elitist air enhanced by the obligatory disapproving glances of the doormen if you enter in anything less than several million yens worth of clothing, these shops tend not to be as welcoming as the department stores. But don’t let that stop you from having a look inside as rich housewives and well-kept mistresses spoil themselves with million-yen handbags.

Competing for attention with the imported brands, Ginza’s home-grown “A-list” of prestigious stores includes Mikimoto for pearls, the giant, nine-storey Ito-ya for expensive stationary, Tanizawa for leather bags and accessories, and Tenshodo on Harumi-dori for jewellery and luxury watches. Should that not be enough for you, Sony Building on Harumi-dori and the Apple Store on Chuo-dori provide a couple of modern options for anyone interested in cool gadgetry.

Ginza on the cheap
Despite its well-earned reputation for being pricey, Ginza does have its fair share of cheaper options, and keeping a day out in Ginza affordable is no longer much of a challenge.

For a cheap bite to eat, most of the usual American fast food places and coffee shops have at least one branch in the area and budget Japanese coffee shops like Doutor (if you don’t mind the smoke) and Excelsior are easy to find, as are cheap and cheerful chain restaurants like Yoshinoya and Matsuya where most set meals are comfortably under 600 yen. When it comes to night life, Ginza is still an expensive night out, but there are some cheaper izakaya around (look for picture menus in the street with the prices listed) and one 300-yen bar a couple of back streets behind Ginza Core where – no prizes for guessing – everything on the menu is 300 yen.

If you want to pick up bargains, you would be barking up the wrong tree looking for them in Ginza, but there are some affordable shops that are worth a visit. The large branch of Muji on the other side of Sotobori-dori is good for simple fashions and interiors and the giant Bic Camera electronics store a couple of minutes away has some good deals on the latest gadgets and home electronics.

In much the same way as Harrods rounds off a trip to London – a little time spent mouth agape at the prices in Wako is a ‘must do’ when in Tokyo.

Founded by a gentleman named Kintaro Hattori in 1881, and as with many Japanese companies created at the time, named after its founder, the business that was to later become Wako started off life as a watch and jewelry specialist until, in the confusion of post-WWII Japan, the company split and the retail portion of Hattori’s empire adopted the name they retain today.

Between its founding and the early morning hours of September 1st 1923, the shop, then known as K. Hattori, was particularly known for its prominent clock tower.

That was, until disaster struck just before lunchtime that warm late summer day; the Kanto area hit by a massive magnitude 7.9 earthquake later given the name ‘The Great Kanto Earthquake’ as most were preparing the midday meal.

In excess of 100,000 perished in the quake and resulting fires; some figures put the final death toll as high as 140,000. Hundreds of thousands of buildings were either entirely or partially destroyed, and Wako was no different; its famed Hattori Clock Tower toppling from its perch high atop the former structure, shattering on the street below.

No records exist as to whether or not the falling clock added to the list of fatalities and it took almost a decade before the department store born from the ashes of early September 1923, had another clock tower added to its roof.

Designed by Japanese architect Jin Watanabe, the structure as it still stands today is effectively unchanged since its 1932 unveiling, and was one of the few buildings left largely unscathed after the American fire bombings of the Japanese capital during the closing days of the Second World War.

The years 1945 to 1952 saw Japan occupied by US forces who, for reasons undocumented but likely connected to showing who was boss, opted to use the Wako building as the Tokyo branch of the PX / BX facilities found on US bases.

Eventually the Americans moved out and business as normal resumed.

Today, with smaller branches in the upscale neighbourhoods of Hiroo and Minato in Tokyo as well as in Haneda Airport and several high end hotels dotted around the country, the store is officially titled Wako Co., Ltd., but is more often than not known by the name of Ginza Wako or, simply ‘Wako.’

As in the early days, jewelry, top of the range crockery, watches and clocks as well as luxury items imported from Europe and the US form the backbone of its stock – and related reputation for only dealing in the best products on the market.

Prices sadly, are Ginza and then some! Think gold credit cards or direct bank vault access if you want to buy, or stick to the proverbial ‘window shopping’ if a mere mortal!

Expense aside though, Ginza would just not be Ginza without Wako.

For further information on Wako as is, view the official website at www.wako.co.jp