【無料で読める】写真集 CRP TOKYO UGUISUDANI SEP.2022 JAPN 鶯谷駅界隈山手線周遊 撮影 TERUYO FUKUMOTO

Uguisudani Nestled between Nippori and Ueno on the Yamanote Line can be found Uguisudani. The station’s beguiling name literally means “valley (tani) of the bush warblers (uguisu),” stemming from the famed songbirds that once populated the forests here long ago. These days, heading out of the station, instead of forest and songbirds, one is met with a vast array of “love hotels.” Ordinarily, you would expect these hotels to be tucked away, away from the public eye, but here, petit hotels with hourly room rates line the narrow streets near the station. The range of these rates is quite large, depending on the size of the hotel. At night, I imagine I may have been angrily shouted at for taking photos around this area; during the daytime, with very few “clientele” about, nobody batted an eyelid at someone with camera in hand. Uguisudani is also home to the Shiki-an calligraphy museum, a large shrine, and apparently, rather delicious ramen. Sitting in a hallway of the small, well-kept Shiki-an where famed haiku and tanka poet Masaoka Shiki, who died at an early age, spent the last few years of his life late in the 19th century, I felt as if I could compose a poem myself. Uguisudani Station is said to have the fewest passengers passing through it among the 30 Yamanote Line stations. Having seen its daytime face this time, I would like to go back again at a later hour surreptitiously to photograph Uguisudani’s neon-lit nighttime visage.
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Teruyo
鶯谷界隈 山手線日暮里駅と上野駅の間にある駅“鶯谷”。 昔この付近はウグイスの名所だったとか。 今ではウグイスの代わりに駅を出たとたんにラブホテルのオンパレード。　普通ラブホテルは人目を避けてひっそりと佇んでいると思いきや、細い路地の左右には一時間単位のお部屋の使用料を掲げたプチホテルが軒並み。　ホテルの規模に応じて料金の幅はかなり大きい。　きっと夜間に写真を撮ると怒鳴られそうだが、真昼間だったせいか、人通りはまばら、カメラを持っていても咎める人もなし。 “子規庵”をはじめ“書道博物館”や大きな神社もあり、また美味しいラーメンでも有名らしい。早死した正岡子規が最後の数年を過ごしたこじんまりとして手入れの行き届いた子規庵の廊下に座っていると、自分でも一句読めそうな気分になる。 山手線３０駅の中で最も乗客の乗り降りが少ないと言われる鶯谷駅、今回は昼の顔を見てきたので、次回はネオン耀く夜の顔を撮りに行きたい。