Shibuya, Yoyogi & Harajuku
Yesterday my brother and I went on an adventure to Tokyo, specifically the city of Shibuya. He wanted to film at Yoyoji Park and Harajuku while, I wanted to walk through Shibuya City and Meiji Temple.
Shibuya, Yoyogi and Harajuku are staples when it comes to Japan and when you think of places to see. Yoyogi Park is the “central park” of Japan (in my opinion) and Shibuya is like Times Square, more specifically due to the Shibuya Crossing.
Personally I love Shibuya but only as a place to visit. I don’t think I could ever live there. The city is way to packed and theres just too much to take in. I feel like living there would be a tad stressful. But I am always happy to take a quck trip in and out of the city.
Meiji Temple was built duing the Meiji dynasty. It’s massive, has some pretty ancient trees in the court yard and the buildings themselves are iconic Japanese architecture. The temple area or walk is huge, I make it a point to visit the temple each time I visit Shibuya. I pray make wishes and it’s a nice way to sneak in some exercise as it’s a minor journey.
Yoyogi Park is another place my brother and I have spent a lot of time together. We once were in Tokyo I believe it was in 2018 when almost three foot of snow fell and we made it somehow to Yoyogi Park to build a snowman. That was a truly magical time for me as we rarely saw snow in Hawaii and when we did it was never a blizzard.
Theres also a bridge there that my brother likes to climb to the top of and take a photo. So far he has a photo in that area for all the seasons except summer. So needless to say, we’ll be making a trip back to Yoyogi soon.
Tokyo as a whole is massive. It’s impossible to see everything on one trip let alone three. And although we have visited Shibuya many times through our visits, it is always changing. The newest and largest difference is the train stations. A lot of them have been massively improved and now the surrounding areas have been developed (more). Coming out of Yoyogi Station, there’s a IKEA; one to fit the size as there isn’t any furniture but still the smaller items are easily assessable there.
Harajuku for me was a little disappointing. First and foremost they got rid of the arch over the entry way on the Shibuya side of Tateshita Street. It’s not a big thing or anything but just different. I assume that the change is due to the pandemic as a lot of stores have been closed and are now available for rent. There was also a substantially less amount of people there, but again pandemic and it was a Wednesday. I’m used to the liviness of it all, the elaborately dressed people and stores with all kinds of different things as well as cotton candy the size of my head!
Hopefully with tourism in Japan restarting soon, all of that will come back or maybe back in some way but different.
I really don’t know when we’ll be coming back to Shibuya as my brother and I have decided to explore closer to home. We feel that the rural areas or inaka as the Japanese call it are under served and not a lot of people know about them. They all have their own specific charm that many would benefit from.
In any case it was a great trip to the big city, a lot of memories there and the realization that many of the places in the world have changed. But in the end I guess that means, I just have to explore that much more.
