Shinjuku Golden Gai - travelling back in time.
Yesterday I met my former colleague T. again in Tokyo. He lives in the Shinjuku area and he kindly offered to show me a delicious ramen place that is one of his favorites. We arrived after 5pm and it was already packed but fortunately we didn't have to wait long and the food was indeed amazing. We got some really good spicy ramen with some white rice as a side dish.
When we finished the dinner we walked around the area, he showed me some other good restaurants and at a certain point he told me "I want to show you an area where you can see how Tokyo looked after the second world war" and I replied "Sure, that sounds really cool". We headed to Golden Gai, a small area composed of six narrow alleys, connected by even narrower paths. The area is full of bars and restaurants so tiny that inside those places there is room for the bartender and another 4 or 5 people max.
In the recent past large parts Tokyo looked like the present-day Golden Gai, with extremely narrow lanes and two-storey buildings. Visiting this area is not only a really good plan to see a face of the nightlife in Tokyo, but also it feels like traveling back in time, by visiting this "island" in the middle of one the busiest areas of Tokyo. Thanks T!
