Shibuya at night

When we first moved here Mike and I went for walks at night almost every evening.  After getting the kids settled we'd go explore the neighborhoods around our apartment.  We don't do that super often anymore.  I'm sure when the weather gets warmer, but before it gets disgustingly humid and hot, we will start going out together again at night.  

My friend leads the photography walks sponsored by the PTA at the school.  She asked me to take over for her next year when she moves back to the states.  I told her no thank you.  It's a lot of work.  She carefully chooses a neighborhood and then does a scouting walk where she just goes to the area and picks a few different places to see and if she can find a few different interesting things kind of close to one another, she comes back later and does a pre-walk where she times it and chooses the meeting place and all those little details.  Then, she manages the sign-ups and chooses the dates (there is so much interest that she does multiple walks) and finally, she leads the walk.  I told her my entire goal this year is to eliminate things that stress me out and this would definitely stress me out.  She asked if I'd come with her next week to help with the night walk.  She's only done walks in the day but some ladies requested a walk at night to learn how to take photos at night time.  My friend wants me to come and help teach how to take photos at night.  My only issue is that a large portion of the participants will have their phones and I don't really know anything about phone photography because my phone camera is junk.  Isaac and I went with her for her first walk to test out where to go.  She chose Shibuya, which is a great place for night photography, in my opinion.  I talk a lot about Shibuya because it's close to me so I'm fairly comfortable with the area.  Shibuya is a big tourist spot.  One of the most famous temples in Tokyo borders Shibuya.  Also bordering Shibuya is the famous Harajuku fashion district with outrageous outfits and bold styles, interesting food trends like rainbow cotton candy the size of your head and my favorite strawberry mochi. Harajuku also has all kinds of animal cafes--dog, hedgehog, cat, pig, etc.  

Shibuya has the most busy and famous crossing in the world.  It's both somewhat overwhelming and exhilarating at the same time to wait for the light to change and emerge into the crosswalk with hundreds of people at the same time. Shibuya is one of the biggest and busiest stations in Tokyo.  I generally ride the bus to Shibuya because it's easy and cheap.  It's only about a thirty minute walk from my house but I prefer the bus unless I'm with Mike, because he prefers walking, partly because he's just started to get comfortable with the bus and he will chose walking to save money almost every time.

I actually love Shibuya.  They have lots of restaurants and shopping and so much to see that you never have to enter a building to feel satisfied.  There are interesting things to see everywhere.  It's actually a sign of progress that I'm writing that because when we first moved here Shibuya was really over-stimulating.  Most walks outside of the apartment were, honestly.  My guess is, when you think of Tokyo as the largest city in the world, Shibuya or Shinjuku are the two neighborhoods you think of, even if you don't know the names.  The crush of people, the lights, the quirky outfits, all things you'd see in Shibuya.  

Shibuya also has a few seedy alleys and we made sure to avoid those at night time.  I don't think I would feel scared to go down those alleys at night by myself but I don't want to take my teenage boy down them because there are a lot of bars and love hotels and things I generally don't want Isaac to see.  We just stayed to the main roads and found some great places that my friend can take people to see on her photo walk.