Shibuya 渋谷

Shibuya is where Tokyo performs itself. The Scramble Crossing is the obvious opening act: up to 3,000 people crossing at once under a wall of screens, filmed by a thousand phones. But the neighborhood’s real pull is what radiates from it. Center Gai and the backstreets toward Udagawacho hold the city’s densest cluster of record shops, streetwear boutiques and multi-floor arcades. The redevelopment of the station area added towers like Shibuya Sky, Scramble Square and Miyashita Park, yet Nonbei Yokocho’s rickety two-storey bars survived next to them.

Come in the late afternoon for shopping, stay for the golden hour on the Sky observation deck, then walk down to the yokocho and the clubs around Dogenzaka, which run until the first train at five. Shibuya is the most “international” of Tokyo’s youth districts, which makes it easy to navigate and a good first evening in the city. Walk north along Cat Street or the Miyashita Park roof and you are in Harajuku in twenty minutes.