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| shibuya: the epicenter of
tokyo fashion and nightlife. |
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| the busiest intersection
on the planet. more than 1 million
people cross this intersection every day! |
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| view to the left. |
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| me in the middle of it all! :D that starbuck's coffee behind me is
where they filmed the shibuya crossing shots from
lost in translation.
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| the busiest intersection
in the world being put to use. |
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| heading towards
dogenzaka, home to such venues as club atom
and the mega-club womb. i stepped
out to sunlight after leaving both places on different days. :D womb is
now my favorite club in tokyo! :D |
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| the famous pacman
sign in dogenzaka. |
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| some "sketchy" alley.
even the sketchiest of allies in tokyo are incredibly safe by
comparison to the us. |
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| the gonguro style
appears to have faded overall since my last visit,
but the extreme tans and bleached hair
remain quite prominent! |
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| another example. |
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| various restaurants.
i think. |
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| more food. |
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| restaurants near the 109
building. |
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| nearby. |
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| jyan-ka! |
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| which is downstairs. |
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| err.. |
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| ok, i can't read this. |
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| jyan-ka sign. |
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| chaki trying
to decipher the menu. |
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| requirement. |
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| first semi-random selection,
a seafood salad of some kind. |
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| followed by a
sashimi platter complete with fish head for entertainment. |
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| this sure looks
like some type of okonomiyaki, but the waitress said it
wasn't. in any case, it was filled with ground chicken among
other things. oishii! :D |
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| maguro shioyaki basically.
cooked in the same style as the saba shioyaki that i usually
eat here in the us, but except using tuna cheeks! :D |
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| the aftermath. |
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my pathetic japanese language skills are so limited that i
didn't know how to say "another" (e.g., as in "another sake, please").
hence, i had to resort to the closest thing: motto (translation:
more). so basically whenever i wanted to order another drink,
i would be pointing to my empty bottle of sake and
effectively be saying "mooooooorre" homer simpson style. :P
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| dessert. |
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| fried rice
ball things. mmmm!! :D |
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| cruising the streets
of shibuya. note to future clubbers here. major clubs in
tokyo all seem to feature something that us clubs
don't: lockers! these are extremely useful for tucking
all of your stuff away and not carrying things around all night. |
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| pachinko parlor. |
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| ... |
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| karaoke. |
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| more karaoke. |
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| i will miss these
vending machines. they are literally everywhere. you cannot
walk more than half a block in tokyo without running into one
or more vending machines featuring great drinks for cheap! :D
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| interestingly,
it turns out coke makes a number of the drinks found in these vending
machines, including
certain green tea drinks, of which i drank a ton of to avoid
hangovers! there was a vending machine five steps outside
the door of my hotel room. :D |
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| train map. |
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| inside the train
station. |
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| the famous hachiko's
statue. |
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| who even has his
own shibuya train station exit named after him. |
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| uh oh, train stops
running soon. while the trains stop at around midnight or so,
in practice this is no problem at all given that the clubs run
until 5am or 6am, which is just about the time the trains start
running again. :D |
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| typical train station
scene. despite the crowds, i assure you that taking a train
in tokyo is orders of magnitude more pleasant in almost
every possible way than taking
the bart (whose whiny employees incidentally are currently preparing
to go on strike)! |
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