Kuzugaya Branch Channel（葛が谷分水） February 02, 2026
This is the very road I used to ride my bicycle down again and again as a child.
Where I walked
Walking the Winding Road I Grew Up With
This time, I walked the road that first sparked my fascination with covered waterways — returning to it for the first time in decades.
When I first learned to ride a bicycle on my own, this narrow, winding road — quieter than any other street around — felt like a secret path I had discovered for myself.
At the time, I had no idea it was the trace of a former waterway.
But walking it again now, I could faintly sense the lingering signs of the stream it once had been.
Looking upstream toward the Senkawa Aqueduct.
The Kuzugaya Branch Channel was a tributary fed by the Senkawa Aqueduct, one of Edo’s historic water systems.
The unusually widened space on the right side of the road appears to have been the former waterway.
Here, the waterway turns to the right and continues downstream.
The waterway crosses Shin-Ome Kaido a little further ahead.
After crossing Shin-Ome Kaido, the waterway slopes gently downward.
The waterway continues toward us from the spot marked by the red-and-white striped bollards.
The oddly widened space along the left side of the road is probably the trace of the former channel.
There used to be a public bathhouse where the building on the right now stands.
Here, the waterway turns sharply to the right.
Because of this turn, the road ahead becomes narrow again.
Here, the waterway turns to the left.
I wonder if the stones lined up along the left side of the road are remnants of the old riverbank.
Almost at the point where it joins the Myoshoji River.
This is where my exploration of the Kuzugaya Branch Channel comes to an end.