Scenes like old times: Finding signs of history amid modern Tokyo

Japan’s financial, commercial and military hub under the shogun years before the royal court arrived, Edo grew prosperous from an influx of merchants and artisans drawn by the city’s gravitational pull.

Life back then centered on central-city Nihonbashi, a short distance from handsome, stone-faced Edo Castle, now part of the Imperial Palace.

Nihonbashi Bridge, long a symbol of Japan and the nation’s ground zero — early roads marked distances using the bridge as a starting point — is shadowed by an elevated expressway built to speed people around Tokyo for the 1964 Olympic Games.

Planners propose removing part of the expressway for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, but that is no sure thing.

Nihonbashi Chou-dori (street), which runs just north of the bridge and is considered the Main Street of Japan, is lined with modern buildings, not the low-rise wooden hutches with softly sliding paper doors we associate with old Japan.

Commercial and artisanal traditions survive in small, family-owned shops — some more than 300 years old — tucked away behind the exoskeletons of the modern buildings that initially made my heart sink.

In the cafe on the far side of the room, customers sip tea with their sweets.

A half-moon-shaped pastry of sweetened azuki paste (red bean paste) looks tempting.

Eitaro Sohonpo, located near the Nihonbashi Bridge on the south side of the Nihonbashi River, is a short stroll from another, older heritage business:

Mitsukoshi, which started out selling kimonos in Nihonbashi in 1673, has morphed into one of the world’s most renowned department stores.

[...] Mitsukoshi’s main store is in a dignified 1935 Renaissance Revival building and annex just north of the bridge on Nihonbashi Chuo-dori.

The pair of century-old brass lions standing guard outside the grand entrance to Mitsukoshi’s main store are polished to a smooth sheen by visitors who rub them for luck.

Inside, the store features a vintage theater pipe organ on a second-floor balcony and an expansive food hall with plentiful and diverse takeout foods in a basement as bustling as a Tokyo train station.

Tokyo’s sprawling tangle of train lines make up the city’s central nervous system.

Relatively compact areas like Nihonbashi and component parts of the district such as Ningyocho, Edo’s old downtown, are best explored slowly and on foot.

Here, an older man seated on the floor is hand-mixing lacquer and applying the thick, strong-smelling liquid to woven bamboo baskets, called tsuzura.

At Nihonbashi Dashi Bar right next to Ninben, I sip a cup of warming miso soup.

A Sunday walk — promenade, really — was their chance to relax, see and be seen, maybe buy a refreshment.

Strolling down the broad boulevard, I spot a man and woman draped in Edo-era garb, a young hipster couple lost in each other’s eyes, some purposeful shoppers.

In the middle of the street, on the white dividing line, a mother makes a smartphone video of her small son, who’s playing with a toy truck.

David Armstrong is a former business and feature writer for The San Francisco Chronicle.

Japan Airlines flies nonstop between San Francisco International Airport and Tokyo Haneda International Airport (12 miles from downtown).

All Nippon Airways and United Airlines fly nonstop between SFO and Tokyo Narita International Airport (42 miles from downtown).

Elegant five-star near Nihonbashi and next to Tokyo Station entrance for shinkansen bullet trains.

Dinner without drinks, with tax and service charge included: from $100 per person.