Tokyo/Bunkyo



Bunkyō (文京) is in Tokyo, north of the Imperial Palace. The name means roughly "Capital of Culture" and, indeed, it's best known as the home of the sprawling University of Tokyo and a series of aristocratic parks and villas.

Understand
The ward's Tourist Association has a Japanese-only guide site with some downloadable maps in English.

Get in
There are six subway lines running through the district with a total of 20 stations.


 * Chiyoda: Nezu, Yushima, Sendagi
 * Marunouchi: Myogadani, Korakuen, Hongo Sanchome, Ochanomizu
 * Yurakucho: Gokokuji, Edogawabashi
 * Namboku: Korakuen, Todaimae, Honkomagome
 * Oedo: Iidabashi, Kasuga, Hongo Sanchome
 * Mita: Suidobashi, Kasuga, Hakusan, Sengoku

Komagome, while just over the line in neighboring Toshima, has been included in this guide.

Gardens




Do
Bunkyo ward is a nice place to walk, but it can be a tough stroll as this area is famous for a number of slopes. There being 433 slopes in Tokyo, as many as 173 of them are located in this ward. Some are named, and some are not. There stands a plate written its history on each slope. Even if you didn’t know anything about this area, it is fun to know its names. There are many unique names, such as Kaiun-zaka (Good luck slope), Yūrei-zaka (Ghost slope), or Ijin-zaka (Barbarian slope). You can look at these unique names on books, some of which only focus on the slopes.


 * [[Image:Tokyo Dome Inside.JPG|thumb|right|Inside the Tokyo Dome]]

Learn
Bunkyo is known as a seat of learning, with 15 institutions of higher education.

University of Tokyo


The University of Tokyo (東京大学 Tōkyō daigaku), formerly the Imperial University and still Japan's supremely well-funded Harvard, Yale, and MIT all rolled into one, has its main Hongō campus in Bunkyo. Around 2000 foreign students study at the University, but competition for places can be fierce. The University of Tokyo also attracts many travelers as a place to look around and to have some food.

The Red Gate (赤門 Akamon) on the Hongo street was built in 1827, when a daughter of the then Shogun, Ienari Tokugawa, married the Daimyo who lived in the premises. Inside the gate are the General Library and the Graduate Schools of Economics, Literature, and Education. To the left side of the gate is the Communication Center which is actually a souvenir shop, and to the right side, there is the university museum. The grounds are sprinkled liberally with large, stately gingko trees, whose leaf can be found on the seal of the university.

At the center of the campus is the Japanese garden of Ikutoku-en (育徳園) &mdash; the Virtue-Teaching Garden &mdash; built around 1630 as the garden of Maeda Toshitsune, one of the wealthiest daimyo in the Tokugawa era. At its center is Sanshiro Pond (三四郎池 Sanshiro-ike), in the shape of the Japanese character kokoro (心), meaning "heart" or "spirit". Both garden and pond are, regrettably, rather poorly kept.

To the north of the pond there is the auditorium, Yasuda Kōdō (安田講堂) which became a symbol of the student activism in 1968-69, when the building was occupied by students as a base facility for activities to change the University registration. In the basement floor there is a large-scale student canteen called Chūō Shokudō (central canteen), offering cheap if rather mediocre food, and a University Co-op where you can buy T-shirts and ball-point pens with the university logo.

To the east of the auditorium is the main building of the Graduate School of Science, where one of the largest photomultiplier tubes, which contributed to the Kamioka neutrino experiments, is exhibited.

The campus has around 20 places to eat, including Starbucks, Subway and several student canteens.

Capo Pellicano is on the 13th floor of the main (tallest) building of the Graduate School of Medicine. Lunch menus are for around &yen;900. The view of buildings in Shinjuku and Roppongi from the western side of the floor should not be missed.

The university also has the Koishikawa Botanical Garden in Hakusan.