Viewing blogs tagged Shibuya

Friday, April 10, 2015

Shibuya (Tokyo), Japan - 2015

# Posted by Joel Dixon at 10/04/2015 11:23:59

Shibuya was another brief stop for us - barely spending half a day there. We walked down from Ginza and made the first, and most important, Shibuya stop.

Rah-rah!

Domo-kun is the mascot of the Japanese television station NHK. I'm not entirely sure why I started liking Domo, probably one of my mother's random gifts. I think she bought me the Domo-kun wall calendar - which is when I started to appreciate Domo's genius. Whether walking in nature, playing baseball, running with a snake or in disguise - Domo always has his mouth open and teeth showing. I've got quite a bit of Domo toys at home - and after our visit to the NHK gift shop I will have much more Smile

So apparently Domo-kun came out of an egg, he also likes meat and potato stew (in-case you were wondering)

Unfortunately, the only way to get to the gift shop was to take the studio tour, of which we weren't exactly interested. But we walked around looking at the exhibits designed for children while being herded by 20 or more staff members. I have no idea if the station makes a profit - but they must have a lot of revenue to pay for all of the staff members that pointed to the arrows that we were already following.

Another place with a strict "no photos" policy - here is Domo wishing us a fond farewell

After leaving the NHK studio we walked down to the "Spain Slope" which is a street that is supposed to remind you of Spain - I'm not sure why that is as it reminded me of every other street in the area. It did take us to our next stop, for which I will forever be grateful. My research of food to try in Tokyo included karaage or fried chicken. Apparently Kin-no-torikawa in Shibuya was a great place to try karaage - and once again the internet came through for me.

The fried chicken was really tasty without any seasoning - in my mind this is what Los Pollos Hermanos tastes like

Once you add one of the seasonings (such as original, curry, lime, salt or chocolate) the chicken really starts to pop (without infringing on any of the KFC trademarks of course)

We took a brief stop at the Tower Records in the area which was interesting. A whole floor of J-Pop, curious displays promoting a specific act at the end of each aisle and a lack of an "Australian Indie-Rock" section all aroused my interest.

I do not know what the significance of the spidermen is (or should that be spidermans?)

You can see some of the corner displays here - while it does take up space I think it's a pretty good idea

I haven't been able to find Babymetal (think heavy metal music with J-Pop style vocals) in the international section of my local JB - so I'm bringing one of these home with me

We continued on to the station - and both Pao and I were were surprised at the sheer number of people waiting to cross the streets in the area. We had been told by a few people that the area outside Shibuya station can get crowded - but it was still quite bewildering. I'm sure most people know about Hachiko, the dog that would walk up to Shibuya station every afternoon and collect his professor owner - until one day the owner died while at his university. The dog continued to go to the station every day in hope that his owner would finally return home. Heartbreaking (try to watch this Futurama equivalent episode without a tear) but a sweet story, so I made sure to pat the Hachiko statue before getting on a train at Shibuya station to return home.

Dwight got it right

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Viewing blogs tagged Shibuya

Friday, April 10, 2015

Shibuya (Tokyo), Japan - 2015