Mystery shrine - who can identify this location?
Mood:  cheeky




While doing my daily rounds this afternoon - my rounds in this case having to do with the search for rare and unusual properties in the Tokyo area (contact me at CRI Japan Ltd. 090-6566-6700 by all means if you have any leads; finders fees negotiable), I came across this rather well hidden little shrine - of ancient vintage yet buried within the grounds of an otherwise far more prosaic commercial development. A small hint: an Embassy is no more than 50 meters away.

Also nearby is an old Taisho era estate that is now shuttered and up for sale - but local community activists are banding together to do something rare and almost unprecedented in Japan, namely prevent the sale of an old estate to condo developers who elsewhere in the city (and in this part of the city as well) have been allowed to chop and crop and flop all their piles of concrete with NO regard to the community other than the obligatory height and bulk restrictions. Zoning in Tokyo is almost a non-event beyond these largely technical "restraints." More power to the citizens, but rarely if ever are the bulldozers of Mitsui Fudosan or Mitsubishi Estate stayed from the "proper" course.