Iriya, Taitoku, Tokyo, Japan

Iriya is an old, peaceful, lowcost area filled with mom-and-pop shops and mom-and-pop businesses and factories. People live here. They have small plots of land on which they built two- or three-storey wooden structures. Typically living upstairs and the business is downstairs.  Sometimes a car or truck will park at night in the office downstairs. Iriya has its own festivals though not on the scale of nearby Asakusa. Iriya may lack the class of Nishiazabu, but your money goes further here. Main transportation is provided by the Hibiya Subway line (just three stops beyond Akihabara, one stop from Ueno. You can get to just about everyplace in Tokyo easily on the Hibiya Line, directly or with one change of trains.

The people of Iriya are growing old. Sons leave to work in trendy companies elsewhere. Mom and pop probably own their land and building now and need to continue working even if the income is small. Iriya was burned to the ground by the American air raids of World War II. After the war there was reconstruction. Small scale business started by young men and women. Today these same men and women are old and getting older and fewer in number. The real estate agents await for the inevitable. As the older generation gives up, the real estate agents and builders try to combine several small plots into one big enough to build a modern apartment building. Iriya now has a few of these apartment buildings and there will be many more built in the coming decade.

Iriya represents one aspect of the "real Japan". Japan is changing; Iriya is changing. The tourist maps ignore Iriya. Most of them stop at Ueno, perhaps with a brief mention of Asakusa, but Iriya should not be ignored. We hope this page interests you and you will come and wander the streets of Iriya.

Samrat Curry House, Iriya map

Sakura Ryokan here

Iriya Station Hotel info

Iriya Urban Hotel info

imcbook map

We are "imcbook". Our long name is Intercontinental Marketing KK and, of course, we are the English booksellers in Iriya.