We continued our walk, from Tokyo Station we explored the office district of Marunouchi. From Marunouchi, we decided to head to Nihonbashi and have lunch at Taimeiken.

We came across an urban farm in the Pasona Building, it includes a rice paddy. What’s grown is used in the employee cafeteria. Some other restaurants also grow their own vegetables in urban farms like this, including Subways which grows their own lettuce.

The Bank of Japan.

The historic Nihonbashi bridge has a freeway over it. The freeway was constructed for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. In order to build a freeway quickly in a dense highly populated area, they took advantage of the open space over the rivers.

What the Nihonbashi bridge looked like without a freeway, from meijishowa.com:

We had a bit of time to kill before lunch, we stopped by the Mitsukoshi department store, which was started in the late 1600’s as Echigoya kimono store.

When I think of the Nihonbashi Mitsukoshi department store, I think of this statue and the lions at the entrance.

The Yakult lady, who delivers Yakult drink to residences and offices.

Storefront New Year decoration.

A nice smoking area:

When we reach Taimeiken, there was a line up. The ramen noodle shop across the street also had a queue.