If there's one word to describe Shinjuku: busy. Busy, busy, busy. Shinjuku is just one of many places in Japan where 20 somethings all flock to when they wanna shop, chill and have a cool day out. During the day Shinjuku is relative tame, but when night falls and the neo lights are switched on Shinjuku comes alive and all the hipsters, trend setters and fly folk come out of the wood work for a good old random good time.
The 2 main things my friends and I did in Shinjuku was shop and eat food. Not that Shinjuku's stores and eateries are better than anywhere else's, but something about Shinjuku just demands your money. And you're not even mad at the place for it. Chalk it down to something in the air or the fun atmosphere that has you forget you're actually broke and got hit by a bitch exchange rate in the heart of the UK recession.
Within Shinjuku is a place called Lumine est, which is a multi story building full of restaurants and department stores. My mates and I frequented this place for 2 reasons: good arse food and fine arse ladies. The 7th and 8th floors during lunch and dinner times is just wall-to-wall chicks. I'm talking WOWL-ta-WOWL! My mates and I couldn't keep our eyes in our heads. It was ridiculous. Every time you turned a corner, opened a door, or looked up you were seeing sexy ladies. Once the appetite for food developed we were spoilt for choice in terms of where to eat. But we settled on a great Ramen place that seemed empty compared to everywhere else on the floor. The owner grew to love us. Damn right too, we ate there 4 times! Our Japanese was so bad that I'm going to just say we couldn't speak it, and the head of the restaurant didn't know a word of English. But our clean as a whistle bowls, big grins hand gestures said enough. The place served up some of the nicest Ramen I've had. I wasn't keen on the stuff at all until I ate it at this place. On the same floor was an ice cream parlour called Stone cold creamery. Trust me when I say this place has the best ice cream in the world. The queue for this place when I went for seconds was plain stupid. Going all the way around the side of the joint and into the fire exit stairwell.
Out on the streets Shinjuku also has a dirty little red light district (I say dirty little like there's any other kind). I didn't get to visit it. We did try walking around the area the smut map said it was supposed to be, but we couldn't find it. I'm guessing it was some Harry Potter shit where you had to push a brick near the Mitsukoshi building to get in. Either that or it's protected by a Gaijin field, so that only Japanese people can see it.
Shinjuku is a fun spot to just wander around and soak up. There's always something that happens or occurs there. For me, select moments included: staff singing and dancing at an ice cream parlour, watching one of the lads get turned down for a date, a girl telling me she speaks no English and then engaging in a conversation in which she speaks better English than me, a young man skidding along wet tiles outside an electronic store and taking down a baffled man in the process like M.Bison's fierce kick sweep in Street Fighter, watching my friend try on a jacket and say how much he loves it whilst being oblivious to it being a womens jacket and watching one of my mates try to escape the game of a guy in a shop who looked like Michael Jackson - just to name a few.
Man, I love Shinjuku.
The 2 main things my friends and I did in Shinjuku was shop and eat food. Not that Shinjuku's stores and eateries are better than anywhere else's, but something about Shinjuku just demands your money. And you're not even mad at the place for it. Chalk it down to something in the air or the fun atmosphere that has you forget you're actually broke and got hit by a bitch exchange rate in the heart of the UK recession.
Within Shinjuku is a place called Lumine est, which is a multi story building full of restaurants and department stores. My mates and I frequented this place for 2 reasons: good arse food and fine arse ladies. The 7th and 8th floors during lunch and dinner times is just wall-to-wall chicks. I'm talking WOWL-ta-WOWL! My mates and I couldn't keep our eyes in our heads. It was ridiculous. Every time you turned a corner, opened a door, or looked up you were seeing sexy ladies. Once the appetite for food developed we were spoilt for choice in terms of where to eat. But we settled on a great Ramen place that seemed empty compared to everywhere else on the floor. The owner grew to love us. Damn right too, we ate there 4 times! Our Japanese was so bad that I'm going to just say we couldn't speak it, and the head of the restaurant didn't know a word of English. But our clean as a whistle bowls, big grins hand gestures said enough. The place served up some of the nicest Ramen I've had. I wasn't keen on the stuff at all until I ate it at this place. On the same floor was an ice cream parlour called Stone cold creamery. Trust me when I say this place has the best ice cream in the world. The queue for this place when I went for seconds was plain stupid. Going all the way around the side of the joint and into the fire exit stairwell.
Out on the streets Shinjuku also has a dirty little red light district (I say dirty little like there's any other kind). I didn't get to visit it. We did try walking around the area the smut map said it was supposed to be, but we couldn't find it. I'm guessing it was some Harry Potter shit where you had to push a brick near the Mitsukoshi building to get in. Either that or it's protected by a Gaijin field, so that only Japanese people can see it.
Shinjuku is a fun spot to just wander around and soak up. There's always something that happens or occurs there. For me, select moments included: staff singing and dancing at an ice cream parlour, watching one of the lads get turned down for a date, a girl telling me she speaks no English and then engaging in a conversation in which she speaks better English than me, a young man skidding along wet tiles outside an electronic store and taking down a baffled man in the process like M.Bison's fierce kick sweep in Street Fighter, watching my friend try on a jacket and say how much he loves it whilst being oblivious to it being a womens jacket and watching one of my mates try to escape the game of a guy in a shop who looked like Michael Jackson - just to name a few.
Man, I love Shinjuku.
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