Nihonbashi: the old merchant city
The bridge that is kilometre zero, the lions on the store steps, and the shops that outlived the shoguns. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. Mitsukoshi flagship and the lions
Start at the head office of Mitsukoshi, Japan's oldest department store, descended from a 1673 kimono shop. Two bronze lions guard the main steps — modelled on the ones in Trafalgar Square, cast in 1914, the agreed meeting spot for generations. The atrium hall inside is worth a look up.

2. Coredo Muromachi
Across the street, the newer Muromachi blocks — glass towers with an old-trades arcade at the base: knife shops, dried-fish merchants, a sake stand. The contrast is the point. Old *Nihonbashi* sold things; new Nihonbashi sells the idea of having sold things, and does it well.

3. Yamamoto Nori-ten
A seaweed merchant on the corner, trading *nori* since 1849 from the same spot. *Nori* is the dried sheet seaweed; this is where the city's sushi shops buy theirs. Buy a tin even if you don't cook — the packaging alone is a souvenir of old commerce.

4. Nihonbashi bridge
The bridge itself — the 1911 stone arch with its bronze *kirin* and lions, and the marker that makes it kilometre zero for every national road in Japan. The expressway was thrown over it in the 1960s and has shadowed it since; a plan to bury the road and free the sky is finally underway. Read the bridge while you still have to read it under concrete.

5. Ozu Washi
A paper merchant founded in 1653, still selling handmade *washi* — the traditional Japanese paper — by the sheet, with a small museum upstairs. *Washi* is light against a window and impossible to walk past without buying one beautiful useless sheet.

6. Bank of Japan
End at the central bank, a stone neo-baroque pile of 1896 by Tatsuno Kingo — the same architect as Tokyo Station — said to be laid out in the shape of the character for *yen*. Free guided tours run on weekdays if you book; otherwise admire the dome from the street and walk down to Nihombashi station.

Nihonbashi: the old merchant city