We somehow struggle to find a giant Godzilla head, and then check out one of Japan's most famous shopping streets, before heading to the world-famous Shibuya Scramble Crossing - so do any of these things live up to the hype?
Shinjuku, Harajuku and Shibuya are all notable touristic Tokyo towns and are reasonably close to one another, so we figured that today was a good day to tick them off, and mostly because we read online that people like to Cosplay in Harajuku of a Saturday, of which today it was. It's a bit of a mixed memory, so bare with me! In fairness, if it wasn't for metadata on photos that include the dates they were shot, and then those photos being sequentially named, so thus I can see the order in which I shot them, I'd be lost already! Especially today, because I keep getting Shibuya and Shinjuku mixed up in my own mind! Anyways, what I do know is that we went in search of Godzilla, and my photos tell me that it was the first thing that we did, so we must be in Shinjuku as that's where the famous Godzilla head peeks out over the building next to Hotel Gracery.
We Google maps it over from the station to the general location, only stopping to snap a few pictures of the typically Japanese signs synonymous with Tokyo and then some Japanese pigeons within the vicinity.. just because, well, why not. I think I was waiting for one of the guys at a shop or something. From here we walked around the block confused looking for this giant head, which for whatever reason (well the reason is Google Maps is crap at telling you which way you're facing), we can't seem to find it and nor could an American tourist who insists "it must have been moved or something" - of course it hadn't, and we persevered. Nearby however, we did happen across a big monkey hanging out, but it wasn't quite a giant, it wasn't fighting Godzilla, and nor was it King Kong, so I think those movies must be made up or something. Marc has a friend who collects Godzilla merch, so next on the agenda was tracking down the official store. It's not quite in the same place so we again rely on Dr Google and head to what we imagined would be some big shop with unlimited merch, but we quickly found out that in reality it was just in the corner of a department type store and pretty small. We of course used that as an excuse to have a mooch around the rest of the store too.
Also In Shinjuku is the equally famous 3d cat billboard as shown above. Some of the things they stick up on it are genuinely really effective to the naked eye, and you can easily spend 20 minutes just staring up at it, and many do, including the locals. We did chuckle when researching it because we came across an interview where a 9-5 male worker in their late teens / early 20's who works around the corner was like "I just come here to watch it and relax every day, it's so cute" or something along those lines. Can you imagine a 20-year-old kid being that humble and at ease with themselves in the UK to appreciate something like this while outwardly exclaiming its cuteness? You have to love the innocence of the Japanese! Anyway, call it capitalist or what you like, but when you can turn an advertisement board into a tourist attraction and something people search out rather than desperately try to skip on a YouTube video, you must be doing something right - we humans are weird, right?
I think there's probably infinite things to do around the 3 aforementioned towns if you really want to get stuck in, but we just had a wonder around with no real aim other than to make it to the next one before the end of the day, so we probably missed so much. It's a bit of a trek between Shinjuku and Harajuku on foot, and you can do it down some backstreets and quiet paths, so it was quite a peaceful walk compared to the full on tourist areas. We probably could have saved a little crowding in them if we went during a week day, but with cosplayers and Harajuku in mind, I figured it would be ace to ask some locals if I could take their picture. There were maybe a few people siding towards kawaii culture fashion, but it was nothing too out there, and Takeshita street was rammed and is also quite tiny, so it just killed any vibe of chatting to any locals. It was sheer chaos in that respect and the photos would have been too busy if anyone did jump out at me, but it's safe to say that on the day that we went, there was nothing that could be said to be close to a cosplay gathering.
There were some shops Dex bought some stuff from, and I saw a real life Chunky-Dunky (for you sneaker heads), but in general it wasn't overly exciting. I guess on a less busy day when you can really explore the quirky fashion in each shop, again buy the crazy massive rainbow-coloured candyfloss and choose to get stuck in to the culture of the quirky more, you'd appreciate it, but as Japan's shops can be quite tight on space, they're not fun to look around if they're super busy. There is however another 3d billboard in Harajuku too, and it's in a quieter area, but y'know, it doesn't have a rotation of a cat, so it isn't as cute or talked about. I imagine there's many scattered about Japan, and I wouldn't be surprised if they're in New York or London too, so I think it must be the cat that sells it to people.
Now I can't remember if it was between Shinjuku and Harajuku or Harajuku and Shibuya, but again it seemed to be just off the beaten track on a walk away from some chaos and to the next destination, where we found what felt like quite an up market gift shop. It seemed a weird place for it, but we also somehow managed to miss the massive Meiji Jingu Shrine between Shinjuku and Harajuku, plus also the smaller Togo Shrine near by, so maybe we were close to there and didn't realise, and thus a gift shop would have made more sense even if it wasn't on a main road? Either way, it's where I got my Geisha figure from. I'd been eyeing one since Kyoto, and I'm glad I waited, as the staff were really accommodating, and surprisingly, so was the price in comparison to Kyoto too. They even put it in a box for me because I mentioned it was going in my suitcase - I was actually double-checking it came in the display case, but they boxed it too though our positive misunderstanding. I wouldn't say it's anything special in terms of quality if I were to describe it to you as a foam based figure, but it has real material robes and came in said presentation box, and at the risk of being the above innocent Japanese man who is secure in his masculinity, it's a beautiful, err, doll? and super cute. It's something similar to this. It's probably one of my favourite things I brought back.
In Shibuya, which is considerably closer to Harajuku, we of course had to visit the famous scramble crossing, which is considered the busiest crossing in the world. It's essentially five big zebra crossings where all traffic stops and people just all walk at once and in all directions. They reckon roughly 2500 people cross at any one time. Now baring in mind we went on a Saturday, I'd say that is pretty optimistic, and despite my wide angle lens maybe making it seem bigger than it was, it was much smaller than I expected - I duno, maybe it was 2.5k, check out the above video and see for yourself!?
Again, we didn't really explore much in Shibuya other than shops. The magnet building is recommended, and it's where Dex bought some more clothes from AGEM-9, a street fashion type store - and again, in typical Japanese fashion, despite it being a more edgy street brand where the workers had more personality in the way they dress, when I asked the shop assistant if I could take an Instax of her in front of their neon sign, she went all coy and giggly despite agreeing. There's also a One Piece store with a funky life-size statue where you can pose under the hat which is held up by shanks as if he's giving it to you like he did Luffy (apparently), and you can tell the people who haven't seen it (like me), because they all pose away from Shanks and towards the camera, whereas fans that know the narrative will all face him for their photo op. In the Magnet store, you can also go to an observation deck that overlooks the crossing, but the queue was massive, so we didn't bother. Also be aware that the shops that do have a slight view of the crossing aren't a fan of you loitering and taking photos from their window, to the point there's plenty of signage to say don't. After all this, we obviously head back to our home in Akihabara and then later explore the quirky Anime cars that are parked up for a pop-up event at one of the buildings on the main strip, as well as, of course, having a mooch around the shops and the arcades some more.
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