A couple of weeks ago I went down to Tokyo to meet with a company J-List does business with. When I heard the office I was going to was in Asakusa, I was happy — between the picturesque Senso-ji temple and the brand new Tokyo Sky Tree tower, it’s one of the most beautiful areas of Tokyo to visit. It’s also a very old part, with the most convoluted layout you have ever seen. Unable to find the address I needed even with the help of an iPhone with GPS (all the buildings were mashed together in confusing jumbles that were difficult to identify from the street), I visited an information booth where a helpful local resident pulled out a giant map book and looked up the building I needed to visit. Japan’s outdated and confusing address system is one of the more inconvenient aspects of living in Japan, and I wish Japan would imitate South Korea and re-map their cities using Western-style street names and building numbers.
Asakusa is one of my favorite parts of Tokyo, though it’s hard to get around.
