I will say this is one of Tokyo's many best kept secrets - a sleepy lil suburb - right smack in the city, easy to get to, so historically rich, so beautiful to behold.

Shibamata was made famous as the setting for a long-running J-drama decades ago.

I read about this place in Lonely Planet before a recent trip to Tokyo and in a spur of the moment, popped over on a gorgeous sunny day a couple of weeks ago.

The photos speak for themselves. The short walk from the train station through Taishakuten-Sando is akin to a walk back in time.

Quaint lil wooden shophouses (with only 4 digit telephone numbers!!! displayed on their signboards harking back to the 1940s/50s) hawking senbei (rice crackers) in huge glass containers, handmade soba (noodles), unagi (eel) line the street. The tourists milling about are all locals. The foreign tourists have not caught on to this place yet.

The small temple Taishakuten stands majestically at the end of the street. One takes in the immaculately cared-for pine tree right infront of the temple, which arms extend several metres across the temple grounds (i hv included the explanation of the pine tree in a photo uplosded here).

I cannot fathom how many generations of dedicated gardening artisans had tended to make this pine tree such an aesthetic sight to behold today.

Do pay for the entrance ticket into the back of the temple - you get to see amazingly intricate 3D wood carvings on the side walls of the temple - depicting heavenly scenes of gods and their relationships with the mortal world, as well as flying cranes and swirling clouds and thunder and lightning.

Next proceed to the inner garden. Take a breather, hv a cup of free green tea from the dispenser, bask in the blessings from Nature. It is a small garden but it is enough to bring some respite to a jaded soul.

I concluded the outing with a meal at the soba shop on the quaint shopping street. Made for a perfect finale.