Step out from your comfortable home located at Tokugawa Village, single standing family residence with a lovely Japanese garden and cherry lane roads. Explore your area of
Toshima- ku. Just outside the gate are many wonderful places to venture out and go as far as the next station at Ikebukuro.
MEJIRO AREA：
Outside the complex several places, a must to visit.
Chinzanso Gardens to view the beautiful fireflies ( Genji Hotaru ) that fly around the Benkei Bridge, from May 20 through July 3. The tails light up in fluorescent green, flying over the river and around the shrubs and trees in the garden. Best time is probably around
7pm – 9 pm.
Mejiro No Mori is a wildlife sanctuary, great for bird watchers.
Gakushuin University grounds are a wonderful place to view old European architecture. With the brick masonry , beautiful archways and British style wooden home. Believe it or not, many architectures in Tokyo were highly influenced by British, French and Russian, which very few remain for everyone to see.
Gallery Fuuro carries wonderful modern natural earthy pottery.
Shopping in the area is well situated, such as Queen Isetan, Kinokuniya, Peacock and others.
Right outside the back gate on the small road, opened recently is a wonderful sweet potato shop called Uluca, worth a try.
Care to try some very Japanese sweets, mainly made with sweet red beans, there are 2 that I recommend; Kan ei do and Shimura. Take it away or you can eat it with a cup of Japanese macha.
Right on the main road out of the Village grounds is a tasty soba shop, Kishoan, on the second floor right next to Kentucky Fried Chicken.
IKEBUKURO AREA：
The next station over either by foot or Yamanote train is Ikebukuro.
Sunshine City
Observation deck
Tokyo Bullet Flight ; Sky Circus Sunshine 60 ( human cannon machine )
Aquarium
Pokemon Center
Konica Minolta Planetarium “ Manten “
Maidcafe
Butler Cafe
Ikefukuro Cafe ( pet the owls ) Owls are a symbol of Toshima-ku.
There are several nice Temples and Shrines in the area worth a visit.
Gokokuji Temple, Buddhist temple founded by Tokugawa Tsunayoshi for his mother.
Zoshigaya Kishimojindo Temple ( on the grounds you will find the oldest candy shop still located in the same house, selling old fashioned and new popular sweets since 1781.
Mitake Shrine
Sanja Shrine
Shopping is great with many of the top department stores, such as Seibu and the Tobu Department store. Bic Camera for your electric purchases. Sun Drug and Matsumoto Kiyoshi Drug stores that carry anything from off the counter drugs, laundry and kitchen cleaning items to cosmetics.
Ikebukuro is known for its top grade Ramen stores.
Kikanbo welcomes you with masks of oni or Japanese ogre and the bats that they supposedly carry.
Ichiran, open 24 hours speciality is their Hakata Tonkotsu.
Taishoken, the original tsukemen shop. Get a bowl of noodles and on the side, a bowl of the soup and toppings which you then dip the noodles.
Enjoy your time living at Tokugawa village with its Japanese ambiance with all the modern necessities. Nestled among beautiful cherry trees on every street within the complex.
Easy access to Lycee Francais International de Tokyo, either using the school bus or by public transport, Mejiro station to Ikebukuro on the Yamanote Line then on the Saikyo Line to Itabashi, school location at Takinogawa.