One fine day in early June, before the rainy season began, I happened to have half a day free on a weekday, so I went for a photo walk along Marunouchi Naka-dori Avenue in Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, while running a few errands.
I started my photo walk near Yurakucho Station, between the The Peninsula Tokyo and the Denki Building, with LUMIX G99 in hand.
It is a weekday morning, so there are few people and cars, and the view is clean and pleasant.
The greenery along the trees is just about to change from fresh green to full-blown summer color. They are fresh colors in the early summer sun after all the rain we’ve had recently.
If I said, “This is the xx Building” every time, there would be no end to it and I wouldn’t even be able to remember it in the first place, but this one is so distinctive that it was etched in my memory as a stone. This is the Dai-ichi Seimei Building.
This street will be specific for pedestrians only during the daytime on weekends.
A series of old and new buildings with nifty designs, and unique apparel and food and beverage stores, mainly high brand names, line the street.
On the first floor of one of the buildings, in a prime location facing the street, was the public Tourist Information.
I guess they are targeting foreign tourists who enjoy exclusive shopping, and once the Corona disaster subsides, there will be more opportunities for them to be active… I hope.
As you walk along the street, you will gradually get closer to Tokyo Station. The sky was a nice blue on this day when I looked toward the Imperial Palace at the intersection of Kajibashi-dori Boulevard.
We’ve come to Brick Square, one of the Mitsubishi Group’s home bases.
Inside there is a museum leading to a beautiful courtyard where you can enjoy shopping and eating and drinking, but I’ll leave that for the next time and continue on through today.
This building is also part of the Mitsubishi Village, Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance. This is a former building of cultural asset value that has been relocated and preserved.
It’s indoors, but I asked the security guard and he said it was OK to take pictures as long as they weren’t for commercial use, so feel free. From the look of the business persons coming in and out of the building, it seems to be used as an active office.
* Come to think of it, the Mitsui Main Building in Nihonbashi was also being used as an office building until recently. Every time I visited the building for business, I was tempted to take pictures of the massive interior and exterior with my camera.
There are many atmospheric cafes that I enjoy taking pictures of, but when I imagine the prices, I am a bit reluctant to enter the stores . I wonder if chain cafes that charge a few hundred yen per cup at most would not be able to make it in such an upscale street store.
Then, I found myself at the back of the Marunouchi Building in front of Tokyo Station.
This is the end of our stroll along Marunouchi Nakadori Avenue.
Next time, we will go inside Brick Square.
Equipment used: LUMIX G99, Leica DG12-60, LUMIX G FISHEYE8
