Blossoms, Hills and Suburbs of Old Tokyo

Plum blossoms by the Tama River in the cold of early spring. Cherry tunnels along the Koganei aqueduct, counted tree by tree. A ruined pagoda in Nakano, a horse's grave at the imperial pastures of Sanrizuka, a forgotten shrine raised by Katsu Kaishū to the rebel Saigō Takamori, and a drunken descent of Mount Takao in the dark.

Ōmachi Keigetsu (1869-1925) was the best-loved travel writer of Meiji and Taishō Japan, a poet, critic and tireless walker with a gourd of sake always at his hip. In these pieces, written between 1901 and 1916, he roams the hills, heights and suburbs of Tokyo just as trams and railways were opening the old countryside to the city. He calls himself "the Naked Man" and travels with friends who go by comic nicknames, trading haiku, Chinese verse and jokes, and stopping wherever the view, or the tea stall, is good.

The collection includes The Plum Grove at Kuji, Cherry Blossoms at Koganei, The Cherries of the Ko-Tone River, The Cherries of Sanrizuka, A Walk to Nakano, The Kohinata Heights, The Koishikawa Heights, The Shrine Where Nanshū's Soul Remains, The Grove of Azuma, Kōnodai, Adventures on the Tama River, Mount Takao by Night and more. Each piece is translated complete and unabridged directly from the Japanese, with endnotes on places, allusions, units and era dates.