A street vendor carrying brooms (箒) balanced on a carrying pole. To protect himself from the elements, he is wearing a broad bamboo hat, known as a bachoukasa (バッチョウ笠). Vendors like him used special calls to make potential customers aware of their arrival.

Boats are docked at the fish market in Tokyo’s Nihonbashi district. If you’d ask someone in Tokyo about this spot now, they will most probably call it a staid business area. This is where the Bank of Japan and the Tokyo Stock Exchange are located. Many financial companies have their headquarters here. Even the department stores in this area—Mitsukoshi and Takashimaya—are seen as a bit conservative. Yet, until 1923, Nihonbashi housed a colorful and busy fish market, right next to the famous Nihonbashi Bridge.

A very rare photo of Kotohira-gu, a Shinto shrine popularly known as Konpira-san, in Kotohira, Kagawa Prefecture on the island of Shikoku, popularly known as Konpira-san. Few foreign visitors made it to Shikoku during the late 19th century. As tinted photographs were usually produced for and purchased by foreign visitors, it is quite special that such an image exists of this location. Amazingly, the main shrine building seen on this image—built in 1877 (Meiji 10)—looks virtually exactly the same today. This is one of those relatively few places left in Japan where you can truly jump back into time.

Tomitake-tei (富竹亭, Tomitake Hall) on Bashamichi-dori, Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, a stone’s throw from Yoshidabashi Bridge. The theater, which was active through 1912 (Taisho 1), was owned by Takejiro Takeuchi (竹内竹次郎), who ran three other yose in Yokohama.