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Jumbo Chef and Kappabashi

Above, the Jumbo Cook sculpture in Kappabashi. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

After spending around 16 hours in a Keisei Line train car in Chiba Prefecture and eventually reaching my hotel 22 hours after landing in Narita International Airport due to snow last February, I headed over to Kappabashi (Kitchen Town) to pick up a chef's knife for my roomie Jes.

I got to Kappabashi within fifteen minutes after my taxi picked me up from my hotel in Ueno. Kappabashi is situated between Ueno and Asakusa (it is technically in the Asakusa Ward of Tokyo).

I knew I was at the right place as we passed the giant chef sculpture. According to Time Out Tokyo, the sculpture is known as "Jumbo Cook."

CNN has a July 2011 article on Kappabashi. About the Jumbo Cook, it says:

Take exit number 3 out of Tawaracho Station and walk west along Asakusa Dori for a few minutes, then look up -- you’ll have arrived in Kappabashi when you see the giant chef's head atop a store called Niimi. 

Appropriately dubbed “Jumbo Cook,” the 11-meter-tall, 10-ton sculpture greets visitors to the neighborhood in more than a figurative sense, as the main Kappabashi Dougu shopping street runs north from this landmark.

The article describes different stores in Kappabashi where "local chefs and restaurateurs daily rely on this food-supply wholesale district for their sashimi knives, signboards and everything in between."

Even if one is not a culinary student or a chef, Kappabashi is an interesting place to browse and shop for pretty much everything for the kitchen.

To read more, go here.