May – June 2023 Japan Trip (Day 9)

Day 9 - Chaos in Shimokitazawa

4 June, 三河島 -> 下北沢 -> 新宿 -> 代々木公園 -> 三河島

As mentioned before, Tommy is a horse-racing enthusiast. Thomas also seemed to be somewhat interested in it. As a result, they bought tickets for a horse race in Fuchu, which was happening in the morning.

This was also the reason why we didn’t choose to visit other prefectures on Day 9. Right at the beginning of the trip, it was decided that Tommy and Thomas would watch horse-racing on Day 9, and so we couldn’t visit other prefectures on that day. Thus, we planned the rest of the schedule around this restriction.

While both of them headed towards Fuchu to watch horse-racing, Bosco, Ming Hin and I decided to go to Shimokitazawa (下北沢).

We restocked some supplies in the maruetsu nearby. At this point, I realised that the best tactic for hydration is to buy 2L bottled water, which was incredibly cheap. After restocking supplies, we took a train to Shinjuku, and then switched to Odakyu to reach Shimokitazawa station.

Even though Shimokitazawa is pretty close to Shinjuku and Shibuya, it isn’t filled with large shopping malls. Instead, the narrow streets of Shimokitazawa are filled with numerous small shops, allowing independent retailers to thrive in the area. The neighbourhood is also known for its hipster-like lifestyle: vintage clothes, cafes, record shops, live theatres, fashion outlets. This also makes Shimokitazawa a popular area among students and teenagers.

As with many locations in Japan, it is also a location for anime pilgrimage. Bocchi the Rock! took place in Shimokitazawa, and it caused a massive influx of tourists flocking over to Shimokitazawa for pilgrimage. I finished Bocchi the Rock! before the trip, so I decided to go on an anime pilgrimage as well.

We exited at the west side of the Shimokitazawa, which wasn’t as populated as the east side: most activities were happening near the east side. Therefore, we slowly walked along the streets, moving gradually from the west side to the east.

After passing a sign for Shimokitazawa Ichibangai, we walked a bit more and reached Honda Theatre, a well-known live theatre. On the back side of the theatre, there were also a couple of shops, including Village Vanguard, and we gave them a visit. There were all kinds of items from the stores, such as books, toys, clothes, backpacks and even CDs.

We moved north and reached Senrogai, a discontinuous street set up along the old rails of the Odakyu line. The street was very long, and we only visited a small portion of it. We passed by Senrogai Open Space, which seemed to have a number of pop-up stores, though we didn’t go inside for further inspection (I didn’t know that the open space was part of Senrogai though - not until I was writing the blog). We also found another sign for Shimokitazawa Ichibangai nearby - there were a lot of them.

Next, we visited Disk Union, a record shop with a large amount of used vinyls and CDs. The genres were more broad (e.g. hip hop, rock, punk, reggae, jazz), and there was more western music compared to other record shops. The price for each disc was determined based on their conditions, and different coloured stickers were used to label them, which was pretty cool.

We walked past SHELTER, a tiny but popular live house located at a corner. There wasn’t much room inside the live house, so only people with tickets for concerts were permitted to enter the live house. Tommy suggested attending a concert in SHELTER to experience the vibe. However, none of us bought a ticket (and we didn’t really have a plan anyway), and we didn’t enter the live house.

SHELTER was also a site for anime pilgrimage, but the flood of visitors had interfered with the operation of the live house. Some entered the small live house, took photos and left, while a handful of them tried to view the performances without paying. As a result, there were warning signs (in multiple languages) placed outside the staircase to SHELTER. The English version was more aggressive than the Japanese one. I guess you need to be more aggressive to drive away international tourists from doing bad things.

At this point, we were all hungry. There was a curry shop nearby. However there were only six seats, and it was already full (and there were three of us), so we had to seek alternatives.

Well, maybe I should’ve found another curry shop, but my crave for cold soba was also growing, and we ended up having cold soba at a restaurant near the Shimokitazawa station. The restaurant was pretty hidden, and it took us a lot of walking back and forth to find it.

The restaurant was divided into two sections by a fence. The reason for that is that the shop also served customers from inside the train station, and you wouldn’t want people to bypass the ticket gate through the restaurant. The fence was set up to prevent exactly that.

I ordered a cold soba with a mini Katsudon. While I expected the soba to be served separately with the sauce, they ended up being in the same bowl, which I’m slightly disappointed at. Despite this, the cold soba and the Katsudon was okay, and it’s a decent meal.

After lunch, we started walking around again.

Bosco wanted to buy some vintage clothes along the streets of Shimokitazawa, something it was best known for, and I was also interested in visiting the shops. There were some more scenes that appeared in Bocchi the Rock!, and I wanted to visit those locations along the way. Ming Hin, on the other hand, wasn’t quite interested in both of those.

The end result was a complete chaotic mix between sight-seeing, shopping, and anime pilgrimage. We can’t remember the paths that we have taken. We crossed the same intersection four times in a row. And the path shown in Google Maps didn’t help at all.

Everything was intertwined, so I’ll divide this part into three sections for better clarity.

Sight-seeing

Anyways, we visited some more attractions while we were walking around in Shimokitazawa.

We saw a lot of car parks throughout this trip to Shimokitazawa. We probably walked past at least 5 of them. However, there weren’t many cars near the central area of Shimokitazawa, and most of the road vehicles were motorcycles.

reload was a small shopping mall along Senrogai, and we visited there. There was a massive contrast between reload and the rest of Shimokitazawa: reload looks more modern and contemporary, compared to Shimokitazawa’s old and bohemian style. There was also an Eastern style cafe called Ming Teng HAO HAO.

Right next to reload was ADRIFT, a newly built event space. There were both indoor and outdoor areas, and ADRIFT was also much, much bigger than other live houses. We happened to encounter an ongoing event ("下北 JUNCTION"), and there were live performances as well. It would be great if we could stay and enjoy the performance, however, there were more places to go, and we needed to move on.

While Bosco was shopping in Shimokitazawa, we encountered yet another interesting sight: a temporary, mini flea market in Pure Road of Shimokitazawa. The flea market wasn’t large. It was mostly families selling their second-hand items, and a couple of food stalls. However, it was a rare sight, and indeed a great sight to me. People from stalls would walk around to different stalls and talk to other people, and most often you would see little kids moving around, managing the stores, or playing with kids. And then there were people who were selling bentos and beers at the other end of the flea market. Everyone, including some tourists, was gathering around, and everyone was happy. Even if it was only temporary, the small, but energetic flea market brought joy and harmony to the neighbourhood.

Shopping

As mentioned before, Shimokitazawa is known for its vintage clothes. It would be a mistake to not check them out.

There were countless shops selling vintage clothes. In fact, the main street was filled with vintage shops.

Bosco and Me walked around to check them out. While I did not intend to buy any clothes, Bosco spent a lot of time checking each and every shirt to see if he liked any of them. We checked a lot of stores, and in the end, Bosco managed to find one that suited him. For that shop, the clothes were labelled using coloured stickers, and different colours represent different prices. The prices are always a multiple of 1000, making it easy to calculate the total price.

There were also other interesting sights in vintage shops. For one, one of the shops was selling stitched clothes, which were made from two second-hand clothes. The two clothes were cut and then stitched together to form a new design. However, the combinations were weird and I don’t really like them.

There were also shops selling shoes and shops selling backpacks. Bosco’s backpack broke, so he had to buy a new one in Japan. We checked out a store selling backpacks, and he managed to find one that suited him.

We also found a backpack that had a typo on it:

Ming Hin, on the other hand, wasn’t as interested as we were. At first, he went into a couple of the stores, but in the end, he decided to just stand in front of the stores until we finished touring it.

Anime Pilgrimage

Even though it was recommended to have a route for anime pilgrimage, we didn’t have one. Instead, I marked a couple of locations on the map that I wanted to take pictures at, and we would visit them at any time, in any order we liked. Basically, there was no plan (and I highly recommend having a plan).

Funny enough, we accidentally stumbled across multiple of the locations while touring around Shimokitazawa, including Honda Theater.

One thing to keep in mind while visiting was to respect the people nearby. This was especially true for shops and businesses (e.g. Takemura, SHELTER), as none of us want to disrupt or harm the subject or location being visited.

Anyways, here’s a comparison between scenes in Bocchi the Rock! and images I took during the tour (including Honda Theater and SHELTER).

Some of the pictures have a wrong angle. That’s something I can work on in the future. Other than that, you can see the resemblance of the scenes in the anime with its real-life counterpart.

Honestly, going around Shimokitazawa to take pictures has been a fun experience. It feels surreal to see real-life scenes that are adapted and re-portrayed by the anime. While walking around, I also saw a couple of young people doing the same thing as me, and it’s cool to see how a common interest can unite people together.

When the horse race finished, we were almost done with all the tasks in Shimokitazawa. We decided to meet up in Shinjuku station, and I borrowed some extra time to take the last two sets of pictures. After I finished taking the pictures, we took the Odakyu line back to Shinjuku.

It was about 5pm, and it was too early for dinner. We walked around in shopping malls nearby. Thomas and Tommy still hadn’t had lunch, so they bought some food. We also manage to get lost while finding our way to a tea shop, hidden in an underground tunnel of Shinjuku station.

As mentioned before, we would be visiting other prefectures on Day 10 - 12 (5 - 7 June). As they are pretty far away from Tokyo, we would be buying the JR TOKYO Wide Pass, which includes 3-day unlimited travel on trains and Shinkansen. So, we headed to the ticket office of Shinjuku station. There were automated machines nearby that sold tickets, including the JR TOKYO Wide Pass, and we used those machines. A special thing about the JR TOKYO Wide Pass was that it was only eligible for non-Japanese citizens, so we needed to scan our passports.

After purchasing the pass, Thomas and Bosco wanted to go do some shopping. However, the rest of us were tired. Therefore, while the two of them were running around in Shinjuku, the rest of us sat in the open area, opposite to the 3D billboard.

An hour had passed, and Thomas and Bosco still hadn’t come back. It was getting late, so we decided to have dinner on our own.

As suggested by Peter, we visited Shibuya dumplings Shinjuku Nishiguchi shop, which sold Shibuya dumplings in Shinjuku…? Anyways, each of us ordered a set, and I also ordered some more dumplings in case I got hungry. The dumplings are decent, and the minced pork rice was great (I haven’t had one for ages). I also enjoyed the soup as well.

Thomas and Bosco still weren’t done with their trip: they bought a lot of things in a drugstore. They were buying snacks, and Tommy asked them to buy some treats so that we could enjoy them back in the apartment.

I played a game of CHUNITHM, and I managed to break my wired earphone. I still haven’t got a new one as of the time of writing the blog.

We decided to leave them behind and visit Yoyogi Park (代々木公園). We took the Odakyu line again, and alighted at Yoyogi Hachiman. Yoyogi Hachiman station was located right at a bend of the tracks, so the entire platform was severely curved along the rail.

A transparent toilet was installed at the Yoyogi Fukamachi Mini Park. Supposingly, the transparent toilet would turn opaque whenever someone locks the door of the toilet. However, the toilet had been broken for months now and would always stay opaque, so we couldn’t witness the colour change of the toilet. Still, it didn’t stop Tommy from having a dump inside the toilet.

After that, we walked to Yoyogi Park, which was very dark. We walked around the park, and there were still some people there. Some people, presumably teenagers, gathered around the field in the centre and made some loud noise (Tommy referred to them as young offenders). There were also a couple of people walking around the park. However, it was too dark and we couldn’t see much in the park.

We walked all the way to the other side of the park and left at Harajuku (原宿), and then we took a train back to our apartment.

Meanwhile, Bosco and Thomas were still in Shinjuku station. They took a train to Tokyo, and they planned to board a train that would lead them to Mikawashima directly. Normally, you would need to take the Yamanote line, and then switch to Jōban line (常磐線). However, some special trains for the Jōban line start at Tokyo and you don’t have to transfer.

However, when they arrived at Tokyo, they managed to miss the final special train by a hair, and they had to take the normal route.

They finally arrived at around 23:30, carrying all the drugs, cosmetics and snacks that they bought from drugstores. They bought a massive amount of items, and then spent a long time calculating the expenditure for each person: they put their items in the same two bags. We had some midnight snacks, and Thomas was kind enough to lend his earphones to me (which I used to play games). Bosco also shared his footage of them missing the train.

With that, today’s chaos was finally brought to an end.