Shibuya de Ohara..

I have to admit, sometimes I walk around this place and run into something that I have no idea about, (actually make that often) and Sunday was one of those days. My first thought as walking down a closed off Dogenzaka was that this was some kind of an Awa Odori, which it very well may have been. But anyway I was walking down to get some lunch and didn't really bother finding out, I mean it's just walking down the street on a Sunday, you don't have to know everything! What I did know was that these dancers, that seemed to come from far and wide, were having a great time spinning and singing their way up and down Bunkamura and Dogenzaka, that and.. I was hungry!

Postscript: Thanks to Elmimmo for filling me in, this was actually the Shibuya de Ohara Festival, inspired by the Ohara Matsuri in Kagoshima. As I said, sometimes I have no idea, fml.. >_<

The Christmas lights of Shibuya..

Shibuya is quite beautiful in the holiday season, the lights that adorn the trees on Dogenzaka for example..







Koen dori is not too shabby either..

Open mic at the Ruby..

Every Tuesday night for as long as I can remember, the Ruby Room in Shibuya has held Tokyo's premier Open Mic night. When I started going it was still around the corner, at the old Sugar High building, and while it has gone through various mutations throughout the years, essentially it's still basically the same: a great place for both wanna-be and established artists to go and develop their craft in a smoke filled room full of drinking music lovers.

I don't hit it so much these days, but whenever I do I find it difficult to leave. Here's a selection of what was going on Tuesday night..

A cool little Quartet (that didn't play any WSQ):



Dan sitting in with some of the guys from Sunset Drive:





Pat, who had more pedals than I've seen anyone slinging since Magic Dirt at Meredith in '96:



And finally, Dan and me doing some songs, both of the old and new variety, just for the hell of it:









Thanks to Tosh from Sunset Drive for taking this last set of pics..

Halloween in Shibuya '08.. part 2

Some more pics from the crazy night that was Halloween. These ones were taken at parties at the Ruby Room and Coins Bar 300, and in the depths of the club/love hotel area off Dogenzaka. Needless to say. everyone was pretty crazy by this stage of the night..

Halloween in Shibuya '08..

I figure if they can start it a week early, I can post about it a week late! These pictures are from outside Shibuya station, where the costume hounds were (prancing and) posing for the many cameras. We were on the lookout for the Halloween train crew but couldn't seem to located them, though it apparently did happen, as documented by Ronin Dave..

Street Walking..

Shibuya supposedly doesn't have street walkers, but there are enough girls walking to and from the small fuzokuten to the nearby hotels to safely assume that the cover of night doesn't always betray the the purpose of the ladies within it. Recently I've seen a couple of attempted pick ups, from guys that would usually get the old 'I'm calling my boyfriend on my keitai' brush off, and they seemed to be able to open up a dialogue pretty well on the backstreets of Dogenzaka...

Inside the game centre..

There are some places that don't really take kindly to people taking pictures, and unfortunately these are often places of the more interesting variety. Games centres definitely fall into this category, for reasons which I haven't been able to work out. I managed to do a covert shoot in the big Sega game centre on Dogenzaka the other night, and was able to document some of the action that was going down. I stayed away from the (well monitored) print club booths, and tried to get some good pictures of the more elaborate virtual-reality games. As an interesting postscript, while this centre is open until midnight, children under 16 are not allowed in after 6pm..

Boys and their bikes.. 04

This fully decked out lookin bike dude was spotted on Dogenzaka on Monday night, not exactly the most obvious street to go for a ride, but a great place to be seen..

The Shibuya Matsuri..

More of the same really, but interesting nonetheless. Last Sunday all of the local Shibuya festival clans converged on Dogenzaka to hoist the Omikoshi one last time. Young and old come together to celebrate this age old tradition whos purpose was once to promote an abundant harvest of rice.

Beautiful..

Tucked away in the backstreets of the Dogenzaka love hotel district, Beautiful almost defines the paradox between Shibuya's youthful innocence, and it's often dark reality. Not that there's anything wrong with that, as nothing says 'den of inequity' better than a bright pink cave-like entrance adorned with neon snake lights and big plastic stars..

Inside love hotels.. 04

So many hotels, such little time.. Seriously though, cheap Romanesque statues aside, this mid-range of the hill's finest has a definite Western classical twinge to it, not unlike something you may find (the gaudier hotels of) in northern Europe..



More and more hotels provide the lone hunter with every opportunity to find company that modern technology is able to provide..



And when in Rome..

Inside Love Hotels.. 03

Who designs these places??

Inside Love Hotels.. 02

Hotel Fifteen Love, situated somewhere down near the lower end of the scale..

Inside Love Hotels.. 01

Intoducing a new series documenting the elaborate and sometimes intriguing decor of the lobbies of Love Hotels in Maruyamacho..

Hotel Beat Wave:

Love Hotel Hill.. 02

As you delve deeper into the belly of Maruyamacho, hotels just keep popping out of the side streets, as do the couples going for some private time!