A walk through Kagurazaka's many narrow winding alleys is like slipping away from reality. Just a step away from the lively main road, and quietude takes over. Gone is the incessant irritant of cell-phone chatter, the barrage of electronic sounds from game centers and the gunning car and motorbike engines. In fact almost the only sound is that of your footsteps.
What makes this all the more amazing is that Kagurazaka is in Shinkuku Ward, well inside the JR Yamanote Line loop round central Tokyo, and so ought to be about as downtown as you could get. It is, though, anything but.
"Kagurazaka sweeps me away from the real world," said Kagurazaka native Minami Hiramatsu, managing editor of the quarterly community magazine Kagurazaka Machi no Techo (Kagurazaka Town Diary). "I feel like I have been transported back in time."