Shibuya is a shopping paradise, home to my three favorite stores in Tokyo, that iconic scramble intersection, a thought-provoking museum, the famous Tokyo Toilets and an excellent skatepark.
Even on Coming-Of-Age day, girls head over to Shibuya to party as soon as their family duties are over! The best time to see the famous Shibuya crossing is during the afternoon and evening, because it’s the one place that gets better as it becomes more crowded. If you’re curious to feel what it’s like when over a thousand people are unleashed every time the light changes, get out and cross it yourself, but the best places to see it are from the terrace atop the Magnet building (where it will cost you a drink) or from Shibuya Sky, the new rooftop viewing terrace atop Shibuya Station’s Scramble Square (which is considerably pricier and requires booking tickets and time slots in advance.
First, let’s go shopping! These are three of my favorite shops to spot all that’s weird and wonderful and only-in-Japan…
The Loft Store
Five floors of great housewares, art, and beauty supplies, including everything you need to turn out amazing Japanese bento box lunches, Elephant Gray hair dye for teenagers, Gnomes of Enlightenment and Rude Gnomes.
They have only-in-Japan useful stuff too! Your kitchen floor will thank you for bringing home some chair socks
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The Hands store
This is a must-see. It’s six floors of everything, including: beer brewing labware, face-shrinking masks, obscure Japanese kitchen tools, snake venom facial treatments, extreme manscaping products, electronic chanting monks and more! We’ll start at the top and spiral down.
Tokyu Hands has an especially great kitchen goods floor, with only-in-Japan cake making supplies like this sponge cake mix where the design is baked right in.
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The Don Quihote (DonKi) store
A racier and cheaper version of Loft and Tokyu Hands, Don Kihote serves up wacky surprises around every corner. It’s the go-to store for ultrastrange Halloween costumes,
eyelid glue and fake eyelashes, cheap electronics, strange sandwiches, weird souvenirs like this meat washcloth…
and scary underwear.
Next, let’s make a restful cultural stop the new Ueshima Museum, a conversation-provoking collection featuring the trendiest international and Japanese artists. The art is displayed in super-pleasing juxtapositions…
and includes pieces by artists who are well-known in Japan…
and are now being discovered in the rest of the world
And if you’d like to see works by Japan’s most famous architects, Shibuya Ward commissioned sixteen of them to design…public toilets! You may have heard of the ones by Shigeru Ban that are made of tinted transparent glass that turns opaque when you lock the door…
but there are sixteen more that are worth a visit, even if you’re not feeling the call of nature!
Maybe it’s time for a little R&R at Miyashita Park, which is now a sleek shopping mall full of hip stores and still home to a killer skate park and a rooftop climbing wall.
And if you’re in the mood for a snack, the Magnet by 109 building is where you’ll find the Hoshino Cafe, where you can order the Godzilla of Pancakes. Don’t pretend you don’t want this. Resistance is futile.
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And here are the other places I take my friends when they come to town
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Jonelle Patrick writes novels set in Japan, produces the monthly e-magazine Japanagram, and blogs at Only In Japan and The Tokyo Guide I Wish I’d Had
Jonelle Patrick writes about Japan 