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| Shinjuku Station. Hundreds of
thousands a day go through it. |
Inside Shinjuku Station.
Clean-clean-clean & rush-rush-rush! |
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| The neighborhood around Shinjuku Station is packed with
department
stores, theaters, music retailers, restaurants and clothing stores. |
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| Where else to find the
Texas Steak House, but deep in the heart .. of Shinjuku? |
The foot traffic here is
thicker than you could ever imagine .. unless you live in New York. |
You have to move
to one of the side streets for a bit less pedestrian crush. |
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| You might think heading off through a side street will
be a lot less crowded ...
until you walk to the very next block and encounter another tidal wave of people. |
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| As shadows lengthen, day shift
people prepare to hand the city over to the creatures of the night. |
Typical building housing Shinjuku nightclubs:
two basement floors and seven more above. Hundreds of buildings like this. |
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| Exterior wall decor in Shinjuku .. meant to convey: "C'mon in! The party's just begun!" | ||||
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| People come out at night because everyone
else does .. and people watching is as good a reason as any to come out .. besides the fact that staying inside a tiny one-room apartment at night is no one's idea of fun. |
How very Japanese to wrap the trees
so they don't get cold. We always saw this in Japan, and never saw it in the U.S. |
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| Shinjuku takes on a whole new brilliance at night.
It's a party town!
The neon signs flicker on, the restaurants and bars start to fill up .. where to go first?? |
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| The traffic at night, both cars and pedestrian, continues
past midnight even on weekdays.
This is not a stay-at-home town, and Shinjuku has a little something for everyone. |
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| This giant video screen is a favorite meeting place
for young people .. but when they
get there, there are 500 others there who'd told their friends the same thing. There must be a bar or restaurant every ten feet in this area, and the air is charged with electricity. |
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| Shinjuku is doubtless the world headquarters for pachinko.
There are pachinko parlors,
it seems, on every corner! Harajuku has zero, but Shinjuku and Shibuya are awash in them. Ten minutes after the workday is finished, these parlors are overflowing. |
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| It may seem totally absurd that this machine ..
that looks like a child's toy .. could create such a hysteria and fanaticism in Japan. |
Pachinko parlors come in all sizes and shapes .. from giant Las Vegas-style glitzy palaces .. |
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| .. to elegant, blend-into-the-
surroundings stores .. |
.. to small, plain-Jane, minimum
flash joints. |
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| Whereas pachinko parlors used to be a tad on the scuzzy side, they are now super clean (no doubt due to being overstaffed by smiling, bowing attendants who sweep with a vengeance). They used to attract mostly men, but women are there now throwing their money away just as fast as the men. They just opened the first six-story Pachinko Tower, and doubtless filled with people, or they wouldn't have built it. | ||
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| No one plays for just 20 minutes; it goes on for hours
and hours. They now have 12-step programs for pachinko addicts. I don't doubt it a bit; I would've probably had to enroll if I had stayed in Tokyo. I still love pachinko! |
Japanese smoke too much playing pachinko. Here's an
"air shower" to get rid of clinging smoke odor. |
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| Tokyo City Hall, located in Shinjuku, is a high tech architectural marvel that has transformed the image of the city. (Well, not completely changed the city's image .. but they're trying.) | ||
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