Japan 2026: Sunday in Shibuya

Wow. Saturday evening was an incredible, albeit slightly overwhelming introduction to Japan.

August 30th, Let’s Go!

Sunday was our one full day in Shibuya, and it had to count. Anthony and Matt were going to be back in Tokyo after Nikko since they were staying in Japan for a few weeks, but for me, Shibuya was it. The NFL regular season was kicking off in about a week, which is when I earn my paycheck, so I’d be heading home shortly after Nikko. With that hanging over us, we ignored the jet lag, agreed to meet in the lobby at 8 AM, and Anthony & Matt kindly made a pact to try and squeeze everything I wanted out of the day.

Breakfast Buffet

The Tokyu REI Hotel was a good find. Beyond the comfortable beds and the bum-tickling Japanese toilets, the hotel had a toiletry bar stocked with everything from razors to skincare products, all complimentary, plus a mini fridge with free drinks and snacks after 4 PM. But the real highlight was the breakfast buffet in the lobby restaurant. You had to pay for it, but it was absolutely worth it. A stress-free, fill-your-plate-twice kind of start to a big day.

While I didn’t take any photos of the food itself, the graphic above shows all the dining options. Everything was excellent. 10 out of 10, would eat there again.

Yoyogi Park and the Super Yosakoi Festival

After breakfast we hopped on the train one stop north to Harajuku, then wandered into Yoyogi Park. If you’ve never been, think Central Park in New York, but somehow more serene, which is saying something. It’s a massive green space where people run, cycle, walk their dogs, picnic, and generally decompress from the city humming around them. It was evidently the original site of the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Village and has water features, a bamboo grove, tons of wildlife signage (including information about the tanuki raccoon-dogs that live there), and more public restrooms than you’d ever need, which, it turns out, Japan takes very seriously as a matter of national pride.

There were also many vending machines, which came in handy because the morning was warming up and a cold Pocari Sweat (or Aquarius if you prefer) was definitely necessary.

We happened to pick an exceptional day to visit, as the 2026 Harajuku Omotesando Genki Matsuri Super Yosakoi Festival was underway. Over 100 teams of dancers and performers were rotating through multiple stages across the park all weekend. When we arrived most of the stage areas were quiet, but all the teams were spread throughout the park warming up and rehearsing. Stopping to watch them was one of the coolest unplanned moments of the whole trip.

On our way out we caught one team on stage mid-performance and I got a quick video. Incredible!

Meiji Jingo Shrine

From the performance area we headed slightly north through the park and passed through the Meiji Jingu Ichino Torii gate into the shrine complex. Meiji Jingu is a Shinto shrine built in 1920 to honor Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken, who were responsible for transforming Japan from a feudal state into a modern power in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The grounds were immaculate. The thing that stopped all three of us in our tracks was a pair of enormous camphor trees near the shrine entrance, so perfectly round they looked almost surreal, set against architecture built to a scale that just makes you feel very small. It’s a “must-see.”

Takeshita Street and the Walk Back South

From Harajuku we basically walked the train ride back to our hotel through the city streets, which turned out to be its own adventure. First stop was Takeshita Street, a narrow corridor packed wall to wall with shops and street food that is absolutely a tourist destination. Otter cafes, capsule arcades, the Sanrio store, extremely confident knockoffs of American intellectual property, and a wild costume shop that didn’t allow photos but had everything from samurai armor to pirate gear to something Liberace would have worn on his wildest night. It was chaotic and fun, but I was relieved when we popped out the other side onto a wider street heading south.

From there the shopping got considerably more upscale. Apple, Google, GUESS, Christian Dior, Fender Guitars, Fjallraven, all lined up along Meiji-dori Avenue. We ducked into a department store with an interesting rooftop terrace that turned out to be decorated in a kawaii theme with cartoony characters and a good view down over the intersection below.

Mont-bell & Tower Records

Two specific stops on the walk back deserve their own mention.

Mont-bell is essentially a Japanese version of Patagonia, featuring private label ultralight outdoor gear and technical apparel with particularly intelligent designs for anything performance-oriented. While there’s no fishing rods or lures, they do make wading boots that I have been coveting for years. Unfortunately my American feet and their sizing don’t quite align. If I’d had more room in my suitcase I would have done serious damage in the layers and rain jackets sections, as the prices seemed extremely reasonable.

Tower Records was a whole other adventure. I don’t know if this is the last Tower Records on earth, but it is seven floors of very fun exploration. Floors dedicated to Japanese exclusives, J-Pop, K-Pop, Rock, R&B, Alternative, CDs, vinyl, movies, pop culture, and even a bar serving a Tower Records branded beer. Anthony mentioned there was live music on the top floor too, a young girl band performing to what he described as a sparse audience of enthusiastic older dudes… 🫤

I was slightly disappointed by the limited “Tower Records Shibuya” merchandise, a few t-shirts and not much else, but as a visual experience it was top shelf. Memorabilia and photo opportunities all over the store. Plus, it was nice to touch physical media again. Not downloads or streaming services.

Quick Lunch

By around 2:30 we were all running on fumes from the morning and nobody had eaten since breakfast. What should have been a simple decision turned into a full-on indecisive kerfuffle, and we ended up in a food court near the hotel settling for burgers and fries. No regrets. We had more adventurous dining still ahead of us on this trip. I did take a photo of the Japanese Heinz Ketchup label though. Make of that what you will.

You Still Here?

This post is going way longer that I intended, but I still need to get to the fishing shops, Shibuya Sky, and our back alley dinner!

The Fishing Shops

After freshening up at the hotel we took Anthony back to Joshuya, the fishing shop Matt and I had stumbled into the night before. It was a lot more fun with the three of us at a less exhausted pace. Anthony pointed out fly boxes he used to sell when he was running Three Rivers Tenkara, which was a cool little moment. I picked up a yamame sticker and a tiny 75cm Nissin Minamo rod for about $24 US. I’m not planning to actually fish it, rather it’s going to decorate a shelf in my office, but at 9 inches collapsed it was sized perfectly to slide right into my backpack for the trip home, so that was an easy call.

We also tried to make it to Sansui No. 1 and No. 2 afterward. Their website and the window signage both said they were open until 6 PM. We got there around 4. The gate was already rolled down. Bummer.

Shibuya Sky

As it was getting toward sunset, we headed up to Shibuya Sky, the observation deck atop the skyscraper right at Shibuya Station. This one required some advance planning. Tickets go on sale at midnight and the popular time slots disappear fast. I had to try three times when I bought ours because the slot I wanted kept evaporating from my cart!

You take an elevator up to a staging area on the 20-something floor, where there are shops and food while you wait for your timed entry. There was a great little shop dedicated to Hachiko, the Akita who is one of Shibuya’s most beloved figures. If you don’t know the story, Hachiko waited on the same street corner outside Shibuya Station every day for ten years for his owner to come home, not knowing his owner had passed away. There’s a statue of him right at the Scramble, and the shop did him proper justice.

From there, it’s another, almost theme-park like elevator ride up to the roof. And once outside, the views were staggering. We spent a couple of hours up there. The building itself put on a laser light show once it got dark, and as a bonus we caught what we think was a concert at a nearby stadium that shot off fireworks around its rim. Just an unexpected extra layer of spectacle on top of an already incredible evening. The photos I took don’t do it justice, but I’ll drop them in anyway. That big dark patch in several of them is Yoyogi Park, the same place we’d started our morning. You can see the yellow and red Tower Records sign too if you look closely.

Dinner in the Alley

By the end of the night all we wanted was warm noodles and cold drinks, which we found in a 1.2-star rated izakaya tucked into an alleyway behind our hotel. The Google reviews were not kind to this place. Whether the food wasn’t great or we were slightly overcharged on something, we genuinely couldn’t tell and honestly didn’t care. It was an outdoor spot, the vibe was exactly right, and after 12 or 13 hours of going non-stop a day after flying halfway around the world, mission accomplished.

We headed back to the hotel with full bellies and scrambled internal clocks. It was time pack again and then get some rest. Our friend Hiro was coming to pick us up in the morning, and Nikko was next!

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