Kappabashi-dori

Kappabashi-dori, also known just as Kappabashi ( _ja. 合羽橋) or Kitchen Town, is a street in Tokyo between Ueno and Asakusa which is almost entirely populated with shops supplying the restaurant trade. These shops sell everything from mass-produced crockery, restaurant furniture, ovens and decorations, through to esoteric items such as the plastic display food ("sampuru") found outside Japanese restaurants.

The street is also an off-beat tourist destination (see [http://wikitravel.org/en/Tokyo/Asakusa#Buy] ).

The street's name is believed to come from either the "kappa" (raincoats) of nearby residents which were hang out to dry on the bridge, or from a merchant named Kihachi Kappaya who funded the project to build Shinhorikawa River for water management. However, due to the homophone with the popular mythtical creature, Kappa, the group of shops along the street officially adopted kappa as its mascot. Images of the kappa appear on shops along the street and web pages. [http://www.kappabashi.or.jp/home/history.html]

External links

* [http://www.kappabashi.or.jp/ Official website (in Japanese)]
* [http://wikitravel.org/en/Tokyo/Asakusa#Buy Kappabashi on Wikitravel]
* [http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3020.html Japan-Guide to Kappabashi with more photographs]