#106 Oumaya-Gashi

The 106th views in Utagawa Hiroshige’s “100 Famous Views of Edo” is the Omukaya-gashi. The original picture is here.

The picture is of two call girls with a bodyguard on a ferry in the night, which looks rather suspicious, but the scenery around the current Umayabashi Bridge is quite healthy.

I’ve forced the development to be a little like the original picture, making it look like a dark evening scene, but it’s daytime, so there are no mysterious figures (or I don’t think there are even at night). On this day, the banks of the Sumida River were full of people out for a walk or a jog.

As soon as I got out of Kuramae Station on the Subway Line to go to the filming location mentioned above, I found a very cool-looking secondhand bookshop along the route 6.

I was actually put off by the atmosphere and couldn’t go in (what a wimp!).

Also along the main street route 6 , Komagata Dojō restaurant, which doesn’t have the same sharpness as the book store, but still has a stable presence.

The center of Asakusa has become such a crowded area with inbound tourists that you almost hesitate to set foot in it, but if you go a little way out of the center, you can take a leisurely stroll and take photos.

However, judging from the ever-increasing number of large and small hotels along the street, the pressure from foreign tourists is still increasing, and it seems that this area will eventually become a “foreigner’s paradise” too. On this day, I saw several groups of tourists who were using the city bus with ease. In a few years, it seems that the scene of Japanese people asking foreigners for directions and having them show them the way will appear.

No, I basically have a welcoming attitude towards foreign tourists. I like talking to them. However, when I look at Kyoto and Asakusa, I think that the difficult question is how to improve the digestive capacity of the people who receive them and prevent overcapacity.

Well, the final view is of the Sumida Riverbank, with the Skytree in view beyond the Ushibashi Bridge.