Signs of Life…

It’s mentioned on a couple of other, okay really ALL the other Tokyo pages on the site, that I happened to make a visit to Japan right at the start of a typhoon. (Hagabis. Google it.) It rendered my first few days in Japan very wet with a lot of locations being closed. This exploration of Shinjuku, a major Metropolitan ward of Tokyo took place on my 4th full day in Japan and started to show a hint of the hustle and bustle that Tokyo is known for, and that frankly I had been desiring.

I did not have too many desired locations to visit, but was more than pleased to wander the streets, because my favorite thing about traveling the world is experiencing, noticing the different textures and colors of a place. Shinjuku has a different texture than Paris, different than Cusco, Peru. I’m sure a night visit to Shinjuku would have rally brought it out, but technology, signage, lights flashing, colors and people all blurring together…that’s the awesome texture of Tokyo and Shinjuku in particular.

an arcade

This was another cool part of the Tokyo city fabric: arcades. They are a big deal, apparently such a big deal that they don’t like photographs being taken inside.This was 1 of the 2 moments where I received a big “X” or got shooed away for taking photographs. (The other was at a shrine, which I can understand). I couldn’t tell for sure, but maybe they are part casino as well, hence no photos being allowed? There’s probably an answer to this question. But here are the two shots I got before a gentleman quickly approached me:

hanazono Shrine

The theme of this trip was acceptance. It truly was. I had Googled shrines to visit around Tokyo and the Hanazono Shrine came up. It looked fantastic in all of the images, but when I arrived, it was shrouded with construction signage and fencing. Sigh. Another change of expectations. The two images below are the only ones I captured, pushing the lens away from the construction barriers. You can still see that it’s beautiful:

golden gai

Again, a main theme of Shinjuku is that “night time is better.” I found my way to Golden Gai which is a tiny district known for it’s bars and small alleyways that attract all the cool kids, mainly celebrities, artists and thinkers. The area was born in the late 50’s as a haven for prostitution and transformed into a bona fide art scene in the 1960’s. It’s fascinating for sure. I caught the PG rated, desolate version of it during the day:

more of the streets

I just spend a few more minutes walking the streets. I did have it in mind to visit the Shinjuku Goyen Park, but again…typhoon. I laugh because as I type this, I’m using a note I made on my iPhone called “Japan Journal,” where I jotted down the chronological highlights of the trip each day knowing I would blog about them in this website later. For this day, I had written down “Shinjuku Goyen Park,” and eventually highlighted and struck through it and added. “Nope.”

Nonetheless, I enjoyed walking around and taking in more of that unique texture of color and structure: