Before retiring, guests often walk around the grounds in their robes and geta--old wooden shoes that go clack-clack through the quiet streets where ryokan are usually located.

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Kissa Sakaiki, located in the Shinjuku district, pays homage to the past by requiring visitors to remove their shoes upon entrance and displaying a wooden chest filled with a vast collection of vintage matchbooks from old jazz kissa along the back wall.

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Clothing and shoes were scattered through the concrete rubble, broken steel bars and shattered wooden window frames littering the streets.

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Competing professionally with an obsolete or even ordinary system is as ill-advised as playing professional basketball in the canvas shoes that were popular in the 1950s and 1960s, or competing in the PGA golf championship with wooden drivers.

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