Artist Allan West uses traditional pigments in his works. Only nine stores remain in Japan that sell the paints and four of which are in Yanaka.

Neighborhood life

What's also special about Yanaka is the window it offers on the everyday life of the neighborhood. Yanaka Ginza sells everything practical that locals could need. Some of it will be familiar: a drugstore, small grocery, fish shop, butcher, and clothing and handbags from the cheap to the fashionable. Others are more unusual to Westerners: a shop that sells just pickled vegetables, and one that offers various kinds of fish paste.

It's interesting to simply wander the residential alleys, where the unpaved streets are crowded with meticulously cared-for potted plants in front of small homes tightly packed together. You'll also find yourself stumbling upon some of the more than 100 temples in the Yanesen area, with 73 in Yanaka alone.

To explore the rest of the neighborhood from Yanaka Ginza, you may pick up a detailed tourist map for 300 yen ($2.87), but any of the free English neighborhood maps you can find around town will do just as well. Turn right at the end of the shopping street and you'll find a tourist information center with many maps and brochures (though its opening hours are somewhat irregular), which can also arrange guided tours by reservation.