Kanda Myojin Shrine

What the guides say about Kanda Myojin Shrine

Kanda Matsuri is the festival of Kanda Myojin Shrine, the shrine on the hill above Akihabara, and it's one of the three great festivals of old Edo. Its main edition, the honmatsuri, is held only in odd-numbered years. Even years get a smaller, ritual-focused festival. 2027 is a main year. Two days are the highlights. The Shinkosai is an all-day procession of about 30 km through Kanda, Nihonbashi, Otemachi, Marunouchi and Akihabara, and the Mikoshi Miyairi the next day is when more than 200 neighbourhood mikoshi are carried into the shrine.

Kanda and Ochanomizu lie west and north-west. Kanda is the older commercial heart, a dense grid of small buildings with ramen shops below and apartments above, served by the JR Chuo and Yamanote lines and the Ginza Line. It eats well for a long stay: Kanda Yabu Soba is the head shop of one of Japan's great soba lineages, Kikanbo does the chilli-and-sansho miso ramen the district queues for, and Kanda Myojin on the hill is the shrine the Akihabara tech crowd adopted. Ochanomizu climbs the hill above it, a university district with music shops and a more collegiate feel. Apartments here tend to be in older buildings, but the location is exceptional. The Chuo Rapid puts Shinjuku about ten to fifteen minutes away and the Marunouchi Line runs straight to Tokyo Station and Ginza.

Kanda Myojin, up the hill west of Suehirocho, is the neighbourhood's shrine and a good place to walk off a late arrival. Under the tracks towards Okachimachi, 2k540 Aki-Oka Artisan is a strip of craft workshops and the calmest thing in the district.