Cat Map
Here’s something I definitely couldn’t do in San Francisco: the cat-petting tour of Sendagi! This handy map details all the local feline fiefdoms. It’s posted outside a store specializing in all-kitty merchandise.
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This neighborhood is where I spent a lot of time researching Nightshade, the first book in my mystery series. Yumi Hata and Kenji Nakamura live right near this cat shop!
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Wandering around the neighborhood near Sendagi station, you’ll chance upon a whole range of quirky stores like this. There’s the calligraphy brush maker, a store specializing in Taisho era (jazz age) kimonos, the seaweed tea shop, shops supplying raw pigments for the local art school students, and the chiyogami store, which sells prints with Edo Era designs.

Neighborhood food is traditional, inexpensive, and great. Here’s a dish I inhaled last summer on the way to the Nezu Shrine:

The Nezu shrine, which is between Sendagi station and Nezu station, is my favorite shrine in Tokyo because of the torii gate tunnel.
If you’d like to visit the Nezu area the next time you’re in Tokyo, maps are on my website, The Tokyo Guide I Wish I’d Had.
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Jonelle Patrick View All
Writing mystery books set in Tokyo is mostly what I do, but I also blog about the odd stuff I see every day in Japan. I'm a graduate of Stanford University and the Sendagaya Japanese Institute in Tokyo, and a member of the International Thriller Writers, the Mystery Writers of America, and Sisters In Crime. When I'm not in Tokyo, I live in San Francisco. I also host a travel site called The Tokyo Guide I Wish I'd Had, so if you're headed to Japan and want to check out the places I take my friends when they're in town, take a look!
I so hope I have a chance to use that guide someday