The Yanaka Cedar Tree

Here’s another post with terrible photos – please forgive me for posting these, but I couldn’t resist the subject, a massive himalayan cedar growing right out of the foundations of a little convenience store in central Tokyo! As all connoisseurs or “shitamachi”, or the classical “downtown” areas of Tokyo knows, Yanaka is one of the best. Situated on a high field overlooking Ueno to south and famous mainly for the many tiny temples and one massive cemetery, Yanaka is popular with locals preserving the low, single or double storied architecture of the area. It’s surprisingly easy to miss and I often wonder how it has managed to escape the lure of the property development people as the location must be really attractive. I always get lost on the labyrinth like little streets of the area and yesterday I wandered into one of Yanaka’s famous spots, the Himalayan Cedar (ヒマラヤ杉) and the Mikado bread store (みかどパン店)! It’s hard to get a sense of just how massive this tree is, and how sudden and unexpected it is as you come upon it from either one of the three streets meeting at the base of the tree. I used a very wide angle lens to capture it in these photos, but the pictures doesn’t come close to showing how awe inspiring this tree is. I really hope this tree will be around for the joy of future generations hundreds of years to come. The old lady who runs the little convenience store seemed as ancient as the tree itself, and I hope she will last many year to come as well, although I didn’t see the cat which is almost as famous as the store itself.