Japan Guide
Tokyo
Shibuya
It's hard to beat Shibuya, birthplace of a million-and-one consumer crazes, as a mind-blowing introduction to contemporary Tokyo. Here teens and 20-somethings throng Centre Gai, the shopping precinct that splits the district's rival department store groups: Tōkyū (which owns the prime station site, the Mark City complex and the Bunkamura arts hall) and Seibu (whose outlets include the fashionable, youth-oriented Loft and Parco stores). Although there are a few interesting museums in the area – most particularly the Japan Folk Crafts Museum – Shibuya is primarily an after-dark destination, when the neon signs of scores of restaurants, bars and cinemas battle it out with five-storey-tall TV screens for the attention of passers-by.
In a plaza on the west side of the station is the famous waiting spot of Hachikō the dog, and the best place from which to take in the evening buzz. Head into the adjacent Shibuya Mark City, a restaurant and hotel complex, for a bird's-eye view. Opposite, to the west, the 109 Building stands at the apex of Dōgenzaka and Bunkamura-dōri, the former leading up to one of Tokyo's most famous love-hotel districts.