A stroll from Palaceside Building. After wandering around Jimbocho, you climb the slope from Surugadai-shita past Meiji University and reach JR Ochanomizu Station. From the building it is a leisurely 20 minutes or so. At this time of year it is not too hot, and pleasant.
Besides JR, Tokyo Metro Marunouchi Line Ochanomizu Station and Chiyoda Line Shin-Ochanomizu Station cluster here. Walk down Hongo-dori and you also find Marunouchi Line Awajicho Station and Toei Shinjuku Line Ogawamachi Station — a very convenient spot.
Besides historic shrines, temples and churches, universities, cram schools and tutoring academies gather here. It is also known as a street of musical-instrument shops, a lively town full of young people. A rather enjoyable area.
I plan to walk the neighborhood for a while. First, the stele of "Ocha no Mizu" that also gave the place its name =(photo above).
It stands beside the police box in front of the JR station's Ochanomizubashi exit. The photo at right is a slightly more distant view. The red circle marks the stele.
The inscription (lower left of the photo above) reads as follows.
"West of the Confucian temple there was a famous well whose water was also offered as tea water
When the Kanda River canal was dug it became a bank and its form remained at the water's edge After the Edogawa was widened in Kyoho 14, when the river was broadened further it ended up in midstream and now even that form is gone from 'Saiko Edo Sunako'
In Keicho times, at the foot of Kanda-yama around here, there was a Zen temple called Korin-ji Once good water sprang from the temple garden and was offered to Shogun Hidetada, who praised it as excellent for tea Thereafter the water was offered daily, the temple came to be called Ocha-no-mizu Korin-ji, and the area was called Ocha-no-mizu Later, known as Meikei or Ko-Sekiheki, it was a scenic spot where men of letters enjoyed refinement People who regretted the landscape fading with the times erected this stele
Sept. 9, 1957"
Incidentally, Korin-ji now stands in Mukogaoka 2-chome, Bunkyo Ward, near Tokyo Metro Namboku Line Hon-Komagome Station. It moved after the Great Meireki Fire (1657). Besides the fine tea water, it is said to have been a temple where the shogunal house prayed for lasting martial fortune.
I come to Ochanomizu fairly often, but to be honest this was the first time I really looked at this stele. I would think "there's something there" and keep putting it off until "next time." Even people who pass this way every day may surprisingly fail to notice such monuments. Walking while staring at a smartphone is out of the question, but even without that, it is good now and then not to hurry so much, slow the pace a little, and walk while paying a bit of attention to the surroundings. That was my reflection.