Shinjuku Golden Gai and More – Joel’s Journeys & Jaunts

To end my trip to Japan, I’m back in Tokyo to catch a plane tomorrow back to my home and native land, more specifically, Toronto. But I still had this afternoon after arriving from my last stop, Nagoya. And my flight doesn’t leave until early evening tomorrow, so you’re not quite rid of me yet.

This afternoon, I visited Shinjuku Golden Gai and a couple of other sights in the Shinjuku ward of Tokyo.

Going to Shinjuku from my hotel required taking two subway lines, the first for three stops and the second for five stops. As luck would have it, at the interchange station, the trains I needed on those lines ran on tracks on opposite sides of the same platform. So, that was easy.

The subway cars on both lines have video screens in groups of three above some of the doors. Two of them show route and stop information, alternating between Japanese and English. The third screen runs advertising.

On both of the lines on the route from my hotel to Shinjuku, and once on the return trip, I saw ads for Air Canada. Most of the text on the ad was in Japanese, but “Air Canada” was in English, and their maple leaf logo was there. There were also the English words, “Black Friday Sale.” I took the Air Canada ads as a good omen. I’m coming, Air Canada. See you tomorrow.

Apparently, the Shinjuku area I was in is a little sketchy. When I got near Shinjuku Golden Gai, there was a loudspeaker broadcasting messages almost continuously in English. There was another loudspeaker broadcasting the same messages elsewhere in the tight area of Shinjuku that I stuck to this afternoon.

The messages said they were from the Shinjuku police and warned of a variety of concerns. For example, stores in the area have been known to overcharge, so be careful. If you visit any of the adult entertainment establishments or deal with any of the women on the street, check information on the internet first and be careful. (Where do you find information on the internet about women on the street? Never mind.) Touts are operating in the area; don’t accept their offers. Um, okay. That creates a warm and fuzzy feeling, doesn’t it?

I don’t want to give the wrong impression about Shinjuku. It’s a large ward, and there are areas with shiny tall buildings and higher-end stores. Just not, for the most part, where I was this afternoon.

Shinjuku Golden Gai

Shinjuku Golden Gai is a small neighbourhood in Shinjuku. My walking tour app recommends it for its “unique architecture and vibrant nightlife scene.” I’m adverse to nightlife, so I can’t vouch for that.

In the afternoon, it’s very quiet. Almost empty. Or at least it was today.

The establishments there are very much hard-scrabble, grungy, and generally quite small, with not a high-end or middle-class store among them. I think they’re technically known as dives.

There are about half a dozen streets in Shinjuku Golden Gai. Because that includes cross streets, the area of the neighbourhood is not terribly large.

The streets are for only pedestrians, and they’re not terribly wide. Some narrow laneways also connect the streets. Calling them narrow doesn’t do them justice. I didn’t see any rats or mice there, but they probably exist, and they no doubt consider them to be wide. If you’re broad-shouldered and you want to walk through one of them, you might have to walk sideways.

If you’re searching for character and colour, Shinjuku Golden Gai has well more than its share of them, even if that character gives off the impression of being one step away from the poorhouse.

My walking tour app, GPSmyCity said that, “taking photographs or recording videos for any purpose on the streets is strictly prohibited without the permission of the area’s business promotion association.”

There were signs in the neighbourhood saying, with English translations, what activities are forbidden there. Most of the signs had long lists of verboten activities. I read one of the signs. Taking photographs wasn’t on the list. And I saw other people taking pictures there. A small number of establishments had no-pictures-without-permission signs in their windows, but there was nothing about the streets in general. So I took a few pictures.

Oh, while there were signs with text lists of things that you can’t do, one had icons and predominantly English text for only four of the things you can’t do, along with a heading. The heading was a tad on the passive-aggressive side. “If you cannot obey our rules, stay out of Golden-Gai.” Lovely. It makes me feel oh, so very welcome.

Shinjuku Golden Gai is a bit rough and divey, but there’s a pedestrian lane running along one side of it that’s paved with variegated, random-shaped paving stones. There are no stores or restaurants on it that I saw, but there is a line of trees and other vegetation. It’s lovely.

Hanazono Shrine

After I left Shinjuku Golden Gai, there was only one other sight I wanted to see in Shinjuku, a rather quirky one. I wandered around Shinjuku for a bit before going there.

In fairly short order, I came upon a street lined with stalls on one side of the sidewalk on the side of the street I was on. Most of them sold street food. Much of it was cooked on grills or griddles in the stalls.

After walking for about a block, there was a cross street—an entrance to a shrine and probably a walkway, not a street, as it turns out—that had similar stalls on both sides of the street. It was crowded.

After walking maybe a half block along this street, I came to a public square with a shrine off to one side. An edge of the square was also lined with stalls. It was hard to tell that it was a shrine because there was an array of lanterns hung in front of the shrine, all but obscuring everything except its entrance.

The square was packed with people. There was a long line, two or three wide, waiting to walk up the steps to the shrine. The line was even wider on the steps.

Assuming this was something important, I pulled out my walking tour app and looked for what was nearby. It told me that I was at the Hanazono Shrine.

According to the app, “The shrine itself is quiet and serene. However, it is known for its regular celebrations and festivals.”

Obviously, this was one of its festivals. The shrine was the polar opposite of quiet and serene today. I might be overestimating, but I think one-quarter to one-third of the world’s population was there.

When I got back to my hotel and started preparing to write up this entry, I visited Hanazono Shrine’s website. With the help of my browser’s translate function, I learned that today was the main festival of the Second Rooster of the Otori festival. And I was there for it!

I left the shrine by another walkway on the other side of the square from where I entered. That walkway extended to the next street over. So did the line of people. Not only that, but the line turned the corner and extended for another long block.

Godzilla Head

After serendipitously stumbling on the festival at the Hanazono Shrine and suffering its hordes, it was time to see the quirky, or should I say hokey, sight I wanted to see. There’s a giant Godzilla head sitting atop a building that contains a hotel.

According to my walking tour app, it weighs 80 tons and is roughly 12 metres (39 feet) tall. The sculpture was created by the producer of the film, “Godzilla vs. Mothra,” and went on display in 2015.

But, wait. There’s more. On the hour, there’s some music, lights flash in Godzilla’s mouth, and a little steam comes out of its mouth. I was there on the hour and heard the music. Having read about the performance, I pointed my phone’s camera at Godzilla and took a short video. It’s only 18 seconds. I ended the video prematurely.

I thought the performance was over, but after a few seconds, it repeated the same sequence, of roughly equal length. I know. I know. It’s disappointing that you don’t get to see the whole show. Sorry about that.

Not the Nakagin Capsule Tower

After finishing up in Shinjuku, I took the subway back toward my hotel, but before going there, I decided to take in a sight that my walking tour app recommended, but not as a must-see, the Nakagin Capsule Tower.

The app recommended it for its unique architecture. It’s an apartment that was built from capsules that were constructed off-site and were hung off a central core. According to the app, the residents hated it because the apartments were cramped and uncomfortable. In 2007, they voted to demolish the building.

Architects around the world argued that demolition would be a loss to the architecture world. According to the app, “Kisho Kurokawa [the building’s architect] proposed updating the design with modern capsules, but as of now, no decision has been made regarding the demolition or reconstruction of the building. Thus, the original Nagakin Capsule Tower remains intact.”

I don’t know when GPSmyCity last updated that entry, but it might be time for a revision or deletion of it. The decision seems to have been made. I had the app instruct Google Maps to send me there. Where the building is supposed to be, there is a demolition site, with most of the demolition complete.

So, that’s gone, as is my day. One more journal entry to go tomorrow, and then this trip is done. Sigh.