Bakery In a Cake

[Jcarlton]

On my trip to Japan last year I came upon this establishment.  It's on the Chuo Line just East of the Kita Oji station.

 

My local library has an old time life cities series book on Tokyo and apparently doing this sort of thing was common back in the '60's.  I wonder how many are left. 

[bikkuri bahn]

It's an advertising facade for a cooking school/vocational college-the course lasts one year according to the ad.  The most common manifestation of theme through form is with "love hotels", the most popular themes being Statue of Liberty or Cinderella's Castle, though recently many love hotels have tried to shed their tacky image by remaking themselves as lower profile "boutique" hotels.

 

*probably should be moved to Off-topic or Travel Experiences.