Harajuku is a neighborhood between Shinjuku and Shibuya, home to Tokyo’s most important Shinto shrine, its largest park, and a focal point for Tokyo’s youth culture and fashion.
During the 1964 Olympics, Harajuku Station was the main transportation hub for the Olympic Village. After the Olympics,...
Akihabara, world famous as one of the most concentrated shopping areas in the world for electronics goods of every possible type and description, has taken on a second role in the last 15 years as the center of Japan’s increasingly influential otaku, or geek culture. For both of these reasons, it ca...
Japanese love Tokyo Tower. For foreigners, on the other hand, it can be a bit of a puzzle. Although the Tower’s main purpose is to support a radio and television antenna, its deeper purpose was to make a statement about the rise of Japan and its economy during the post-war boom of the 1950’s. It is ...
What's in style today?
A quick look at what Tokyo's most fashionable are wearing now.
In Shibuya, trends come and go faster than a bullet train. Let's meet some of Tokyo's Beautiful Peopl outside Shibuya 109 and see what they're wearing now.
Akihabara, world famous as one of the most concentrated shopping areas in the world for electronics goods of every possible type and description, has taken on a second role in the last 15 years as the center of Japan’s increasingly influential otaku, or geek culture. For both of these reasons, it ca...
Shinjuku is, literally and figuratively, the heart of Japan’s capital city. In fact, since the 1991 relocation of the city government into the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Offices in West Shinjuku, some Tokyoites have taken to calling Shinjuku shin toshin, or new capital.
Shinjuku Station is the...
The name Odaiba means fort, revealing the origins of what has become one of Tokyo’s most thriving tourist destinations. In 1853, shortly after Commodore Matthew Perry’s alarming expedition to Japan, the Tokugawa Shogunate constructed a series of island batteries to guard the entrance to Tokyo Bay. I...
Just west of the grounds of Asakusa’s Sensoji, visitors will come across Hanayashiki, a small and slightly run down amusement park. Don’t just shrug it off, though, especially if you have kids with you who might like a break from shrines and shopping.
If for no other reason, Hanayashiki deserves ...
Not just another tourist trap
Entering Senso-ji, travelers will pass through Nakamise-dori, the avenue of small shops stretching between Kaminarimon and the temple grounds. Many visitors may assume these shops are just peddling trash aimed at the tourist market, and indeed some guidebooks make refe...
Japanese love Tokyo Tower. For foreigners, on the other hand, it can be a bit of a puzzle. Although the Tower’s main purpose is to support a radio and television antenna, its deeper purpose was to make a statement about the rise of Japan and its economy during the post-war boom of the 1950’s. It is ...
In the year AD 628, two fishermen working on the Sumida River found a small golden statue of Kannon, the bodhisattva of compassion, in their nets. The master of their little village recognized the importance of the find, and promptly enshrined the statue in his own home. Some years later, Senso-ji w...
Shibuya is the name of one of Japan’s wards, and as such includes Harajuku, Ebisu and a number of other neighborhoods. In common speech, however, Shibuya usually refers to the shopping and entertainment district just south of Harajuku, centered on Shibuya Station, one of Tokyo’s busiest.
Shibuya ...
