A visit to the Frank Lloyd Wright designed Jiyu Gakuen Myonichikan school is probably not on many Americans must see in Tokyo list. We were able to wander the rooms and image what it was like for Jeanettes mother who attended here in the 1930s. This location is now a cultural heritage site and the school continues as a prestigious girls school at another location.
I will end our tour with what is called the ‘starting point’. A brass plaque embedded in the middle of the Nihonbashi Bridge Tokyo in 1972 replacing an earlier marker. The plaque marks the point from where all distances to Tokyo are measured.
Nihonbashi Bridge was designated by the Tokugawa Shogunate in 1604, as the starting point for the Gokaido (the five major highways connecting the feudal capital of Edo to the rest of Japan). This tradition continues today, meaning whenever you see a highway sign stating the distance to Tokyo, it is measuring the exact distance to this specific marker on the bridge. The bridge is also a tourist attraction which has lost its charm and is now covered with a double highway.
Both the school and the bridge have had interesting brushes with destiny …
The school survived the air raids of WWII but by the mid 60s the building was in disrepair and was saved only by the alumni and architects who were interested in making it a cultural heritage site.
The bridge also survived WWII with minimal damage but in the early 1960s (ahead of the 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympics) a highway was built directly over the river and the 1911 stone bridge to save time and avoid the high costs of buying up private land…now Tokyo is trying to figure out how to ‘uncover’ the original Bridge.
Sayonara… what a great adventure!
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