April 16, 2025: For our first full day in Tokyo we visited Shibuya, which is an entertainment district (or should I say ward?) in Tokyo. Probably best to take a picture of the train station name that we emerged from for future reference, yes? Not that we got lost or anything!
Upon exiting Shibuya Station, this was the scene that greeted us: A Starbucks dead ahead and people, people, PEOPLE:
The intersections here are something else. The traffic lights go red or green seemingly for vehicle traffic in all directions, and then red or green for pedestrians, again seemingly in all directions. The pedestrian traffic was absolutely redonculous. The calm before the storm in this image:
And then, THE STORM!
I feel like none of the pictures or video I took during my Japan trip captured the full force of how many people there were everywhere at all times forever and ever!
Well, we’re similar to Osaka so far: More Pokémon!
More pop-up shops (found Minecraft this time) and life-sized figures:
There was one shop that EVERYONE wanted to visit, Toy Sapiens, a toy store for big kids (haha!) Lots of action figures and trinkets and knick knacks. There were nine of us from our Calgary Star Wars Fan Force group here in Japan for the Star Wars Celebration convention, and on shopping days like this before the convention, most of us were actually hanging around together at any given time.
We found our way to Toy Sapiens with Google Maps, we used it for directions to pretty much anywhere we needed or wanted to go. The shop had a sign in the window stating it was closed because of Star Wars Celebration! Either they took all their Star Wars stock to set up at the convention, or maybe they didn’t have enough staff to man both the store and the convention! Either way, there was no getting in while we were in Japan!
Speaking of Google Maps, the GPS on all our phones was bouncing all over the place in this concrete jungle of a shopping area! Not knowing our way around at all, especially to begin with, and trying to get a sense of direction when we came and went from different places, the GPS sent us on some wild goose chases I think! The map would show us where we were, and the little dot that was us would move as we moved toward our destination, and then suddenly a couple blocks later, the map pointer would jump and send us back the same way we came and beyond, in the opposite direction. Sometimes it seemed to point us nowhere near where we wanted to go, and then other times it would suddenly show us that our desired shop was real close. I’m sure we ended up getting a few extra hundred or thousand steps in, due to this happening! We eventually always found what we were after, but we did a ton of walking.
A map of the general area we spent most of our time, with some of our destinations:
For supper we went to HUB British Pub. Yep. British!
They had craft beer! Brew Dog (who apparently originated in Scotland) Punk IPA sounded like a good name, so had to try it. I found it interesting that you could order 1 pint, or 2/3 of a pint:
What’s up with that??! Are we trying to be healthy? Or responsible? Or something else?
United we stand for better beer! That’s what the glass says and I like it:
I had this killer Mac & Cheese with Bisque Sauce for ¥740 (yen), that’s like $6.50 CAD! Dirt cheap! It was pretty small, maybe it was an appetizer? Or maybe it’s because I’m in Japan, who knows! Mac & Cheese for the win!
And there you have it…. Shibuya in a day!
