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Shibuya, or First Walk in Japan

We arrived in Tokyo in the late afternoon on 18th May. As soon as we left the familiar confines of an international airport, and descended to the train station, I recall feeling visually overwhelmed by signs and information. The fact that we hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours was partly to blame, I’m sure. In our confusion the machines didn’t make any sense. Thankfully there were helpful folks at the ticket office that informed us of what train to take and where to get on board.

The rest of that day is a bit of a blur as we made our way to the hotel in Shibuya, and then walked around briefly later in the evening as jet-lag threatened to take over any time we sat down anywhere.

A wide cityscape of Tokyo featuring the Tokyo Tower in the distance, surrounded by modern skyscrapers and urban buildings under a clear blue sky.

It was the next morning, after breakfast, that we wandered off to explore for the first time.

Top-down view of people riding parallel escalators, seen through architectural glass panels.
Modern architecture featuring curved silver supports, lush vertical gardens, and a white industrial staircase leading into a shadowed interior space.

We made our way through the urban landscape of Shibuya passing by the famous Shibuya Crossing, where we hung out for a bit later that same day.

High-angle view of a massive crowd of pedestrians crossing a wide urban scramble intersection surrounded by city buildings and billboards.
A distressed concrete wall featuring a sign that reads "ARMY KILL BOMB BOY" in blue letters, with an "Evening News" banner at the bottom.

Then through some side streets we wandered in the direction of Yoyogi Park.

Three women walk along a path with yellow tactile paving and green bollards in a narrow urban street, next to a large silver and green delivery truck.
A person pruning a small tree with shears in front of a modern building with horizontal slats.

The shaded groves of the park were a welcome relief from the sun that was high up by this point, while at the same time, the dappled ground was quite pleasing.

A person with curly blonde hair wearing a striped blue shirt looks at a "Garden Path" information sign in a wooded park.
A grove of tall trees with sunlight filtering through the green canopy onto a dirt ground, with park benches and a lone person sitting in the background.
A person walks along a paved path through a sun-dappled grove of large, green trees.
A wedding couple walking through a sunlit park field surrounded by dense green trees.
Sunlight filtering through a dense canopy of green tree leaves against a clear blue sky.

Through the park we came across some of the toilets that are part of the Tokyo Toilet Project, and that we heard about in the film Perfect Days. The walls of these are transparent when unlocked but become opaque when locked.

A purple translucent glass structure in an urban park, with a children's playground and high-rise apartment buildings in the background.
A sun-drenched road in Japan winding between lush green forested hills under a clear blue sky, with pedestrians at a crosswalk and several vehicles along the roadside.

As I look back at these photos a month later, it’s obvious that I was looking at things with a sense of defamiliarization. Signs, on buildings and roads, and vending machines, which became quite familiar over the course of two weeks there were all so novel and eye catching on this first walk.

Three Japanese vending machines standing against a brown tiled wall, bordered by a leafy flowering shrub on the left and blue recycling bins on the right.
A gray tiled building wall with three Japanese traffic signs on a white post and a leaning yellow pole.
A busy Japanese city street featuring a Bic Camera electronics store with vibrant signage and pedestrians waiting at a crosswalk.
Low-angle view of modern urban architecture featuring a building with brown cladding and crisscrossing grey steel beams, a tall glass skyscraper in the background, and a structure with a bold magenta curved accent. Greenery is interspersed at the base.
A narrow concrete canal flowing between tall urban buildings and greenery.

This day and walk marked the first of many over the next twelve days as we explored Kyoto, Osaka, and finally other parts of Tokyo. It was a memorable first trip as we hope to revisit and explore other parts of Japan in the future.