Sunrise Country – DAY NINE

We said “goodbye” to our beloved Kyoto and a warm “welcome” to Tokyo. Traveling by shinkansen is always a pleasant, fast and comfortable ride.

Hotel MyStays in Nippori, located at 5-43-7 Higashi Nippori, Arakawa-ku, Tokyo 116-0014 Japan was a warm welcoming place for us. Situated at just a few minutes from the Nippori Train Station, it was our second Japanese home. The rooms were nice, inviting us for a quick and comfortable nap, after carrying our heavy luggage from Horikawa Dori in Kyoto to our rooms in MyStays Nippori. But we had to get out, have a good meal, explore our surroundings and follow our plan for the day.

Tokyo felt like spring, comparing with Kyoto which felt like summer, in May. It was still a lovely sunny day, but it felt you needed to put something over the T-shirt. The Nippori air was calm and cool.

We have found a good restaurant just between our hotel and Nippori Station and we had our nice “battery recharging” meal and the traditional Asahi beer, just perfect to get the energy to explore our first destination for the day: Shibuya 渋谷.

We took the train from Nippori Station right to Shibuya Station. The metro and train map of Tokyo might be overwhelming, at the beginning. My mom thought that traveling to Japan without a guide will surely get us lost. But, you know? The super well-organized transport system is so logical and easy to figure out, that travelling all by ourselves was simply great and “error-free”. Always carrying a map is very useful, too.

As soon as we went our from the station, Shibuya was welcoming us with its typical colorful and crowded landscape.

I was traveling with my 2 Fujifilm mirrorless cameras, the small and compact X100S with a 23mm F2.0 lens and my X-T1 with the pro-grade standard zoom, XF 16-55mm F2.8. No OIS on any of my lenses. And I do like to photograph during the evening and the night, but if you follow my tips about night travel photography, you will be just fine.

The first thing to do was meeting my fellow photographer friend from Shibuya. On his very busy schedule (as a full-time professional photographer), he was able to meet us between 2 business trips, on our first Tokyo day, in one of the most famous and busiest meeting place on earth:

Here! I guess the photo needs no more explanations. This famous Hachiko ハチ公 statue is located just in front of Shibuya metro station and so close to the memorable Shibuya Crossing – they say this intersection is the most crowded in the whole world.

We stopped at the red light and tried to immerse ourselves within this feeling of universality; watching a sea of people, each one with its unique feelings – quite a powerful mental experience.

After we have met, we decided to walk the streets and talk, find a nice place to stay, have a drink and chat a little more.

Meeting him was a real pleasure and I know it was a great opportunity to hear some of his teachings (encouraging, tips and tricks – the things photographers talk when they meet) – always learning, right?

During our walk, we have visited a few stores in Shibuya. This area is very popular for shopping and entertainment, dining and night clubs that receive a lot of customers on a daily basis. It is also a great place to meet artists. The vinyl record store was impressive!

Finally, we have arrived at the place he wanted us to invite to, an old and charming venue called B.Y.G bar (Beautiful Young Generation) in Shibuya. The atmosphere was cosy, intimate, the bar wasn’t too much filled with customers. It was like traveling back in time and space, with an European flavor of the 70s. Thank you, my friend for the good choice of site for the evening. We will come back there.

Time flies when you’re having fun. While talking about photography and other stuff, I guess it just opened his curiosity towards Fujifilm mirrorless cameras. What a great night it was, but afterwards it was also time to say goodbye.

On our way back to Shibuya Station and its faithful Hachiko eternal guardian, we enjoyed the cool and vibrant evening. This place is one of the most visited tourist attractions in Tokyo and we just saw it on our first day, since arriving from Kyoto.

Navigating through the ocean of people, we headed our way to the station with a little fatigue, but with a feeling of accomplishment.

Waiting for the train to come, we were contented with the resolutions of the day. It was time to go to our new home and get that well-deserved rest.

Nippori surroundings had a different flavor during the night, with all the lights turned on. Our Tokyo day turned out to be exactly like we have planned it.

Some other great attractions were waiting for us for the day to come. I wish we had more time to discover Tokyo, at least as much time as we had in Kyoto, but it isn’t easy to plan a 2 week trip to Japan and have enough time to see everything you would love to see. I felt asleep dreaming about Ginza and the Electric Town.

 

All photos and text – © Sebastian Boatca 2017 / http://www.sebastianboatca.com