🧵 I quite enjoyed this book by Satoko Akio about Kyoto during the American occupation. Though I don't know how much I would have gotten out of it if I hadn't lived in Kyoto for a long time and thus knew something about the places and subcultures she covers. Having lived
Oikedori is a very wide east west thoroughfare that runs south of the imperial palace. It is wide because houses were being torn down to create fire breaks that would prevent fire from spreading to the palace in the event Kyoto was firebombed. Tearing down buildings around the
The grounds of the old imperial palace were narrowly saved from being requisitioned to build housing for US military personnel. What is now the garden area of the palace grounds was being used to grow food, so probably looked shabby, and those in the Japanese government Tokyo