Takasaki, Home of Daruma

Yesterday I took a drive to Takasaki, part of the Takasaki-Maebashi-Isesaki tri-city area in our home prefecture of Gunma. I was there to pick up a computer that had been repaired, but since Takasaki happens to be the location of the only Domino’s Pizza in our prefecture, I decided to get some Hatsune Miku pizza and bring it back for the J-List crew to share. While I drove through Takasaki’s unpleasantly narrow roads, I reflected on how history can affect the present day in interesting ways. Both Gunma’s prefectural capital of Maebashi and J-List’s home city of Isesaki are fairly pleasant places to drive in, with wide, well-planned roads, but driving through Takasaki is usually an experiment in frustration. One reason for this is both Isesaki and Maebashi were bombed during World War II, which gave city planners a chance to rebuild with more forethought, but Takasaki was not. Also, Takasaki was an important castle town back in the Edo Period, so its roads are narrower and harder to navigate than if it had been a more modern city.

Takasaki is famous for its Daruma dolls. Which is pretty cool.