Shibuya summer nights

Mental note - never grow up

While Tokyo is often known as the city that never sleeps, having experienced its nights I would instead call it the city where anything can happen, you know where nights start but you never know when, where and how it will end.

After 17km walk around Kamakura, nearly 3h train ride and a yummy izakaya dinner we were pumped enough to check out the teen side of the night, with a walk around Shibuya's main attractions. At night. You can see the look of the pachinko fella pictured below, it did not seem like a good idea.



...but turned out to be a great one. From Shinagawa, we took a short Yamanote ride to Shibuya. Surrounded by a million teenagers we crossed the crossing and amazed at the neon lights of the center gai - you thought it was colorful at day? Even more so, at night.




I never get enough of these streets, so characteristic of Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong and Taipei.

Then, we went where teens go - not to make out at the karaoke! - but to one of the videogame parlors.


Nothing beats a taiko match 「たいこのた」 when you have overdone it with the wine! Enrique may be the winner but had to injure his hand... I am queen of the Evangelion song!

* Video for you nerds out there reading!


Not a great idea to try our luck with the prize cranes, so we walked around a bit more.





Turns out that in Tokyo, they also drop trash on the street - but only the recycling stuff so it's not as smelly as here in Bangkok.



Hachikō - where all starts and ends
In 1924, Eisaburō Ueno a teacher from Tokyo University adopted a dog as pet and called him Hachiko, who would wait for him every day at the entrance of Shibuya station until he returned by train back home. For a year, the dog would sit there all day long until Ueno-san would come back. But in May 1925, he passed away out of a brain stroke while teaching, never returned to the station. Still, Hachikō proved his loyalty to him by standing in that same spot, every single day during the 10 years of his life, hoping for Ueno-san to come back.

Now this beautiful statue stands in front of a bronze train wagon, used as meeting point but also as reminder of loyalty and honor, cornerstones of Japanese identity.