22 min walk from the tea room
Zoshigaya
雑司ヶ谷
If you read Sōseki or Lafcadio Hearn, you already know this neighborhood, even if you don't know its name.
Zoshigaya is where Tokyo, briefly, slows down. The Kishimojin temple is its center — a small, perfectly proportioned compound with a 700-year-old camphor tree and a candy shop that has been there for two hundred years.
The cemetery a few blocks away holds Natsume Sōseki, Lafcadio Hearn, John Manjirō, and a long list of writers and printers. It is large, walkable, and never crowded. There are signs in English at the major graves.
Take the Toden Arakawa tram from Kishimojin-mae if you can — it is one of two surviving streetcar lines in Tokyo, and the ride out toward Waseda is the kind of thing that makes a slow afternoon feel earned.
Combine this neighborhood with a tea ceremony.
Reserve a seat
