Shibuya Station, or: Hard to admit it, but I'm a bit intimidated

Hi guys,

Ahh, Shibuya, you guys know Shibuya.  Picture Tokyo in your head, and I'd bet a thousand dollars to a thousand yen you're picturing either Shibuya or Shinjuku.  The two-story tall television screens, the neon, the glitz and glamour, that's all Shibuya.  Not to mention the iconic street crossing, where hundreds of people cross the street every green light, every thirty seconds, for hours on end

And don't forget about Hachiko, the dog who waited at the station for an owner that would never come (his owner had died at work) . . . every day for nine years.  You may know him as Seymour

No trip to Shibuya is complete without saying hi to Hachiko.  I like to scratch him behind the ears and tell him he's a good boy :)

So if it's such a centerpiece of Tokyo, why did it take me a whole month and a half to visit?  Oh, lots of reasons.  It's a little far away from where I'm staying, it's expensive, I like neighborhing Harajuku and Shinjuku better . . . but part of it is simply that Shibuya is a little intimidating.  That's a big deal for me to admit, because I've told everyone that was worried about me that, "nah, Tokyo's not that big of a deal, I totally understand it."  But I'll admit to an exception:  Shibuya is daunting

Most of the other major neighborhoods in Tokyo, I get.  It took about a day wandering through Ikebukuro to feel like I understand the layout, the same for Ueno.  Even the bigger or crazier ones like Shinjuku and Akihabara and the Tokyo-Yuurakucho-Ginza area make sense to me.  Any of those stations, if you gave me a blank streetmap I could label what kind of stuff is in each area and probably pick out a dozen specific restaurants or stores.  Sure there would be a few sections of "Here Be Dragons", but that would mostly be shorthand for "Here Be Office Buildings and Other Boring Stuff I Don't Care About".  And some neighborhoods, like Yanaka or the Harajuku-Omotesando corridor, I could probably sketch a reasonably accurate map on a blank piece of paper

But give me a streetmap of Shibuya, and large swaths would simply be labelled "Shibuya Stuff".  Except for a few definite landmarks, like Nonbei Yokocho (Drunkard's Alley, oh don't worry that post is coming) or the skatepark, the entire northern half of the station is a mystery to me.  And I can't put my finger on why.  Is it busier than Shinjuku?  Not really.  Is it louder and brighter than Akihabara?  Less, actually.  Is it bigger than Ikebukuro?  Honestly, I have no idea, because I still can't get a mental picture of how big it is anyways

Seemingly endless blocks of this

And this was on a not-busy-at-all Sunday night

The streets are a little more windy, the terrain is a little more hilly, and everything about that district of Shibuya is just more.  I got lost the other night!  Me, lost!  That doesn't happen; you can take me up and down and round and round and I can still turn and point to the station.  But in Shibuya, there are just too many things to look at, too many things to do, too many things demanding you pay attention to them, even I have to resort to the "pick a direction and stumble that way hoping to see something you recognize" strategy every once in a while

I found a really cool mini alley filled with record stores . . . could I find it again?  Eventually, but man it would take a while

And it's worth heading back there, they call a spade a spade

So, here I am, presented with an entire neighborhood that is uncomfortably enigmatic.  I'm left with two choices:

1. Hack into some defense satellite to level the entire district to rubble, thus avoiding the awkwardness of ever having to go back there (this might seem out of left field, but it's actually just a re-purposing of my old plan for dealing with the entire stretch of NE 45th St between I-5 and 25th Ave.  God I hate that street, I hate it so much)
2. Keep on going back to Shibuya as often as possible until I know that place so well I could walk around the entire neighborhood blindfolded

Guess which one I'm gonna pick ;)

If nothing else I gotta visit this yakitori bar:  1) It apparently houses the essences of the Golden Goddesses that created Hyrule, and 2) Beer is only 300 yen

Noah out