One of my favorite spots on this planet is Musashi-Koyama Shopping Street Palm, the largest indoor arcade in Tokyo. What I like about it is that there is nothing special about the place, except it’s very Tokyo-like in that it serves the population very well with mixed business of Japanese fast foods, coffee shops, bike shops, pet stores, bookstore, and various departments of the Off store brand business. Opened in 1956, I suspect that this location’s design hasn’t changed. My first introduction to the idea of an arcade was through Walter Benjamin’s mega book on that subject matter. Arcades were the first shopping malls of their time, but a Japanese arcade has a robust street flavor that is specifically Japanese.
I have been to other arcades in Japan, and I like them all, but what makes the arcade in Musashi-Koyama so unique is that it goes on for 800 meters or eight city blocks long. If you are at the entrance on either side, it becomes a vanishing point when you look at it straight down. There is nothing “hip” about this arcade; it serves all with its discount shops, specialty food markets, and used hi-fi and computer equipment. It even has a large 100-yen shop full of discounted goods. I often feel that this arcade doesn’t exist, but it is in my imagination—one of the reasons why I love walking here. To go from the entrance near the subway station to the exit is a journey of one’s soul, and there is something sexy about it as well. The pathway to the vanishing point is a destination of no returns; one goes forward as one should in life.
There are various sweet shops in the arcade, but my favorite is this place: The King and Strawberry Musashikoyama. It opened sometime in the 1980s but looks like post-war Japan time and is a visual treat. I never went inside the place because I wanted to fulfill my imagination rather than deal with reality. I love the idea of sweets and enjoy the visual aspect of the food, but I never eat anything sweet. So, my love is at a distance, and there is a masochist and Sadistic element to that relationship. The more I desire, the more I reject. The hallway from the cake counter to the dining area is very sexy. One can only get a sneak view from the entrance of the dining area without walking into the business. There is something voyeuristic about this presentation that I find enticing.
Precious Coffee Moments is a chain shop that may have come from the Kobe area of Japan, but what I find interesting is the decor of their shop in the arcade. It is very mid-century modern, with decent jazz music in low volume being played over their sound system. It is an excellent place for a quiet meeting, but I love it here for a writing session. I ordered the Vienna Coffee, a black coffee with a spoonful of cream on top—a satisfying experience. And the mood here is neither sad nor happy, just a neutral landscape for me to deal with my ongoing depression. I don’t plan to end it all, but it's more like wearing this sadness as an overcoat during the winter. It becomes part of the skin, and complaining about it is like commenting on the weather. It will always be there, and that is that.
Such a great name for a coffee place. I often consider my coffee moments as precious. And in such an extremely neutral environment, it would allow me to concentrate even more on the precious moments of sipping and tasting. What a find, Tosh!
Reminds us all of a grand evocation of the Paris Arcades explored in so surreal a fashion by Walter Benjamin.