One day my 4G mobile internet connection refused to work and my battery had almost drained to 0% while looking for an address in 台東区 (Taitō-ku), one of the 23 special wards (kanji: 特別区; tokubetsu-ku) of Tokyo, in English referred to as cities. I had just gotten off the Odeo Line at Shin-Okachimachi Station and I quickly memorised the address but then my trouble began: how to read a Japanse address?

Japanese addresses start with the largest geographical entity first. But in this case I got the address from a website written in English and the address was adapted to western style: 4-25-10 Taito, Taito-ku, Tokyo. I knew I was in Tokyo and to be more specific in the city of Taito (台東区) so then I had to look for the next geographical entity, which in this case was the number 4, which refers to the city district 4 or 4-Chome (四丁目). Luckily I was already there.

Next is number 25, which is the banchi (番地) or city block followed by number 10, which is the gō (号) or house/building number. This can be written as follows: 25番10号 (25-ban 10-gō) or simply 25-10 on the gaiku-hyōjiban 街区表示板 or town block indicator sign. Sometimes this is followed by another number, which is the apartment number, necessary in big apartment buildings.

In this case that number was missing and I soon found city block 25 with the help of a kind lady in front of Takecho Park. Now all I had to do is find building 10. In the photograph below you see I'm standing in front of building 3. Very close! All I had to do is walk around city block 25 to find building 10.

From large to small. City of Taito, 4-Chome, City block 25, House/building number 10. For administrative purposes a postal code (〒) and prefecture is added in front of the full address. In this case the prefecture is 東京都 (Tokyo-to). The address I was looking for is written in Japanese as follows: 〒110-0016 東京都台東区台東4-25-10.

Why was I looking for this particular address? I wanted to visit Shinohara Maruyoshi Furin, a small glass blowing and glass painting studio that produces Edo period furin, or wind chimes (fu=wind, rin=bell). During the Edo period (1603–1868) the Dutch introduced the technique of glass blowing in Nagasaki and in the 19th century glass furin became quite popular in urban Edo due to the low price. I bought two Edo furin. One with a painting of a brown robed Daruma and a bright red furin with a painting of a ship and the character 宝 (treasures) written on the sail.