Step back to the past

Sample the arts and crafts of Tokyo and quiet rhythms of everyday life with a stroll around the Yanaka neighborhood.

The typical visitor to Tokyo envisions a futuristic city of skyscraper canyons and electronic gadgets, but in the eastern part of the city, an older way of life persists.

"In Yanaka, you have the history, the tradition, the temples," says Allan West, who's lived there for over 30 years, but "without any of the self-consciousness you have in Kyoto," a city known for cultural preservation.