Age really IS just a number! Charming photographs capture Tokyo's elderly residents… including a sake-drinking bar owner and shellfish divers

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Many people dream of retiring by the time they reach their sixties but in Tokyo residents strive to keep working into their nineties. 

An incredible photo series, from parts of the Japanese city tourists often miss, shows age really is just a number.

A 93-year-old bar owner in the west of Tokyo says she opens every night. Sips on sake every night. And is intent on keeping it that way until she physically can't. 

Another elderly woman who is bent double continues to work at a traditional eel restaurant - despite the fact her family also work there and are happy to take over her duties.   

The average life expectancy for Japanese people is enviably high at 83.10 years. The country also has the highest 'healthy life expectancy' in the world, with its average citizen living to 73 without any major illness or disability. 

This elderly lady may well be bent double, but she was still speedily making her way through Tokyo's busy Shinjuku district.

After diving for shellfish a few hours south of Tokyo, these three were enjoying a very cosy bath in natural hot spring water

Now in her eighties, this coffee shop owner still brews drinks downstairs, and then takes the orders up to the second floor where the seating is. All day long, six days a week

Photographer Lee Chapman captured the quirky photo series which documents an elderly trio in a hot tub after diving for shellfish, a Japanese man who resists conforming by painting a moustache and eyebrows onto his aged face and many other lively nonagenarians.

Mr Chapman has lived in Tokyo since the end of the nineties, initially meaning to stay just a year or two. It quickly hit him that this wouldn't be anywhere near long enough to get a real grasp of the place. 

'Then slowly but surely I stopped kidding myself about any kind of real understanding, or indeed any real thoughts of leaving,' Mr Chapman said. 

A 93-year-old bar owner in the west of Tokyo says she opens every night. Sips on sake every night. And is intent on keeping it that way until she physically can't.

Spotted waiting for a train at a central Tokyo train station was a very stylish Japanese woman in a beige robe and white gloves

An old Japanese man, riding a bike, who still resists conforming has painted a moustache and eyebrows onto his aged face

Some of her family also work in this eel restaurant, but the old lady, despite her terrible physical state, is still there every single day

'I just stayed, lived and naturally began to class Tokyo as home. A city that's as wonderfully diverse as the country it's situated in, and an absolute delight when it comes to photography. 

'The clichés, needless to say, are all here: the busy crossing, the cosplayers, and the incredibly high-tech toilets. 

'Yes, there are even robots. Well, a few anyway. But dig just a little below the surface, and it's a very different world indeed.' 

Mr Chapman explained how this unusual photo series came about: 'Away from Tokyo's well known and modern entertainment districts, the city is very different from how it's so often depicted. Initially drawn to the capital's many older neighbourhoods, I very quickly became even more drawn to the large number of elderly people still living and working in those areas. 

'People who have plenty of stories to tell, and their faces often more. Sadly they and those areas won't last forever, so photographing them has become something to actively document, rather than simply enjoy.' 

Many more glimpses of this fascinating city can be seen on his blog, Tokyo Times.

An elderly person pushes their shopping trolley in a scene from an old and poor Tokyo neighbourhood

A third generation shoemaker is pictured still plying his trade in the business' original, ramshackle building

An elderly man takes his shoes off and puts his feet up as he enjoys a few lunchtime beers in a local Tokyo ramen shop

A 50-year-old Tokyo bar that the far older owner lives in. She sleeps and lives right next to the actual bar area

This used to be the kitchen in a small local deli. The shop has long since closed, but the owner still uses the kitchen to cook for herself

Modern convenience stores are everywhere in Tokyo, but the old-style mom and pop shops they originated from like this one can still be found 

An old bar, with an old dial phone, and an age-old conversation is pictured in this incredible photo series from Japan

An old lady is pictured in a hat still farming in the traditional way with a smile on her face in Niigata, north west of Tokyo

A lot of Tokyo homes are surprisingly dilapidated and like the high-rises you see on TV. This one has definitely seen better days

Now almost 90 years old, this coffee shop owner opens just twice a week, and from just 7am to 9am

This meant is pictured resting at the end of another long day in an old Tokyo tofu shop. The Japanese food staple can be seen to the right

An elderly lady is pictured struggling to lift the shutters outside her former shop that is now just her home