Four hundred shops in five hundred metres, started by four hundred returned soldiers who went into business together.
The street runs under the elevated Yamanote line between Ueno and Okachimachi, and five hundred metres hold four hundred businesses: fish and fruit sold with loud cries, clothes, knick-knacks, jewellery. Here you haggle, something that is hardly done anywhere else in Tokyo.
It began after the war, when about four hundred returned soldiers repatriated from Manchuria organised themselves into a community and formed an association that regulated who could open a shop. On the name, the association itself gives two versions and does not choose: the many sweet shops (ame), or the goods imported from America.
ℹ️ A public street, which you can walk through at any hour; opening hours are those of the individual shops. It lies between Ueno Station and Okachimachi Station, which are the two ends of the street. ⚠️ Opening hours and closing days are not on the association's page: if you are going for a particular shop, check them separately.
🚉 Keisei-Ueno · 2 min walk
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Chapter 156 of the manga, in the spin-off about Rintarō's parents, opens with Keiichirō and Kyōko eating miso ramen around here; the panel before that shows the pedestrian crossing at the end of the street, with the JR elevated line drawn with care and the shops only sketched in.
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Sources: ameyoko.net · note.com · note.com
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