ED75's Random Japanese Trip Photos

[ED75-775]

ED75 Approved Spot #4 - Shinjukugado Bridge

Heading the furthest north along the Yamanote, Chuo and Sobu Lines in Shinjuku, we reach Shinjukugado. Whether this just refers to two intersections or a part of Shinjuku, I am not certain - Japanese-language etymologists, chime in with your thoughts please! Back in 2019 I stayed near Shinjukugado West Intersection, in what was then an ibis Hotel; now that that's gone and been reborn as WPÜ, I have stayed at the APA Hotel Shinjuku Kabukicho Tower which is nearer to the Shinjukugado East Intersection and the Seibu Shinjuku Station. Slightly off topic and having just flown along the Chuo Line from Ome in Google Maps, I can understand why @railsquid refers to "funny Seibu branches which infests the west of Tokyo in a mildly disconnected manner..." in his layout thread - they seem to be everywhere!

 

 

Starting in 2019, with the first photo I would take of Shinjuku looking towards the Shinjukugado intersection and Yamanote-Chuo-Sobu bridge (with Shonan-Shinjuku and Saikyo Line through services). The focus apparently was the bicycle parking, though I'm not sure why I took it anymore. Perhaps it was just a quick grab shot? Or did something catch my eye about this? This is probably peanuts compared to some of the other bicycle parking spaces one might see around.

 

Jumping now to 2024:

 

 

Taken just after 9PM on my first full day in Tokyo this year (29 May 2024), the intersection is momentarily quiet as an E235 barrels through. In the background are some of the buildings bordering onto Kabukicho, the former red-light district which is now gentrifying but still annoying home to plenty of touts who I have developed the ability to ignore now. Not that they'd have much success from me, as I don't drink alcohol (hence the expensive model train hoard!)

 

 

Taken the following day and on the other side of the bridge, we're now (almost) in front of Seibu Shinjuku Station, and smack bang in front of one of the entrances to the Subnade underground shopping mall which also happens to feed into Shinjuku Station's underground passages. Today's target is a Saikyo Line E233-7000, with the Tokyo Mode Gakuen peering over the top of the train in the background.

 

 

Jumping ahead to my last night in Tokyo and the other side of the road, another E233-7000 heads into Shinjuku Station. For the historically inclined, had things gone the way they were planned then this view would have been harder to obtain thanks to the Seibu Shinjuku Line. According to my applied Google-fu on Japanese Wikipedia, the Seibu Railway had planned to go right into Shinjuku Station with one of the floors in the Lumine Est building on the east side of Shinjuku Station being planned and built with enough height to accommodate the Seibu trains. Despite this, Seibu eventually decided not to go ahead with their plans, the trains terminate where they do, and one can enjoy unencumbered views of the JR tracks on the eastern side of the bridge.

 

Alastair

 

 

[ED75-775]

And now, for something different

Let's step away from the trains for a little bit - Shinjuku is more than just about those. For those who like to wander, Shinjuku does provide a few delights to enjoy.

 

 

Home base for my last two trips has been this hotel: the APA Hotel Shinjuku Kabukicho Tower. It's a comfortable, albeit cozy stay - rooms are slightly on the smaller side as is typical for an APA Hotel, so don't get carried away buying stuff if you stay here (!) - though no worse for space than the ibis Shinjuku was. Plus, breakfast is available, and there's a free public bath upstairs! There isn't an onsite laundry though so if you need to do laundry during your stay, you have to traipse over to another of their hotels several blocks away which has a public laundromat behind it.

Advisory note: the owner of the APA Group, Toshio Motoya, is a known right-wing revisionist who has sought to downplay Japan's actions in World War II; books of his views under the pen name Seiji Fuji are available for reading in the hotel rooms (I haven't read them, apart from briefly picking one up once and not really even reading it at that too!). If you feel strongly about not supporting this kind of person, you may wish to give this hotel chain a wide berth.

 

 

 

Just across the street is Tokyo Kabukicho Tower, a new development opened in April 2023 which combines theater, entertainment and accommodation in a 48-storey, 225m-tall tower designed by Yuko Nagayama. My sole interactions with it have been with the Starbucks under the big screen on the corner of the building, facing into the plaza in front of the hotel and which is known as Cine City Plaza. It's a nice little Starbucks, one of at least two I know on this side of Shinjuku; the other hides down in Subnade and is in my opinion slightly more intimate and cozy.

 

 

And for @cteno4, a photo I thought about posting in my holiday thread (but never did), here's a early-evening look down Central Road towards the Hotel Gracery Shinjuku, which appears to be under kaiju attack by none other than Godzilla himself! This road gets rather busy with pedestrians at this time of night, and more than a few touts who, thankfully, are easy enough to ignore and will not bother you unless you happen to get close enough to them.

 

 

One street over on Yasukuni Avenue, is the 'gateway' to Kabukicho. Lit up at night it's an iconic photo spot of sorts. Hiding just out of shot to the right is one of the ubiquitous 7-Eleven stores which can be found almost anywhere in Japan; this one has a separate ATM space accessed from a doorway behind the Kabukicho arch. Many's the time I've used that ATM, or stopped in for a bite to eat at that 7-Eleven! I've also found the Lawson across Cine City Plaza from my hotel to also be a good place to go for cheap eats too.

 

Slightly further east of Kabukicho is the Four Seasons Pathway, a former Toei tram route that has now become a linear park with a link into the Golden Gai bar district. As I've blogged about that in 2023, I've attached a link to that above.

 

Alastair

[ED75-775]

Heading a little closer to Shinjuku Station, we have what @Tony Galiani refers to as 'cheap thrills': the Shinjuku Cat. According to my iPhone, this is an American Shorthair which seems an odd choice - why not use a local breed? Getting a good shot of this 3D-animated feline so it looks realistic can be a bit of a challenge with the hordes of tourists and locals in front of it, but it's doable as this 2023 shot attests.

 

 

Occasionally neko-chan will decide to do some physics-defying wormhole-y thing, and stick its head through a hole in the back of its billboard, only to reappear on another screen on the front of the ALTA Shinjuku building. When I took these photos earlier this year, I hadn't turned the 'live' function off on my camera so I have two snippets of video showing neko-chan sniffing at the signs and mewing... hope it's not hungry... where's my bucket of squid... stop, no, DON'T LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT!

 

    

 

Jokes aside, it's fun. And cheap! And yes, neko-chan does get up to a few shenanigans too every now and again, just to keep it fresh.

 

 

That puts us squarely in front of the JR Shinjuku Station, seen here in 2023. Lumine Est, as mentioned earlier, was partially envisioned as the Seibu Shinjuku Line terminus, but with that extension never built it's now a shopping center with a two-story food court at the top.

 

Alastair

Edited Thursday at 01:34 AM by ED75-775
Photos don't always want to behave. Oh well!

[ED75-775]

To wrap up the eastern side of Shinjuku, we briefly return to the trains in 2019 at Takashimaya Times Square, from the Books Kinokuniya Tokyo store on the sixth floor. This one is devoted to English-language publications; while the main Kinokuniya bookstore further north does have a selection of English materials on their seventh floor, I cannot vouch for this personally as my trips there inevitably have been for volumes of RM Library!

 

 

This reminds me that while I have the open nose doors for a Kato E259, I have yet to give in to temptation and purchase one. It's only a matter of time... (and money!)

 

Alastair

 

[Tony Galiani]

I wish I had this info for my last trip!  Wandered around Shinjuku a bit when we were in Tokyo but missed some sightseeing opportunities.

Did get to see the cat for a bit - cheap thrills indeed!

BTW - in Osaka there is now a dog animation near the Glico Running Man so of course we had to watch that.  Not as good as the Shinjuku cat though.

Cheers,

Tony

[Kingmeow]

21 hours ago, ED75-775 said:

Advisory note: the owner of the APA Group, Toshio Motoya, is a known right-wing revisionist who has sought to downplay Japan's actions in World War II; books of his views under the pen name Seiji Fuji are available for reading in the hotel rooms (I haven't read them, apart from briefly picking one up once and not really even reading it at that too!). If you feel strongly about not supporting this kind of person, you may wish to give this hotel chain a wide berth.

 

Interesting.  I've heard other things about APA hotels, just rumors, like they are not non-Japanese tourist friendly.

[ED75-775]

Heading now to the western side of Shinjuku Station, for a quick sightseeing tour, ED75-style:

 

 

Probably one of the more iconic buildings in Shinjuku and currently the seventeenth tallest building in Tokyo, the award-winning Tokyo Mode Gakuen Cocoon Tower is a 50-storey tertiary education building, housing three different colleges specializing in fashion, medicine, and information technology. An interesting combination! It was designed by Tange Associates to resemble a giant cocoon to symbolize the nurturing of the students inside. It opened in 2008 and is credited with helping to revitalize that part of Nishi-Shinjuku, among other stated goals.

 

 

Slightly more down to earth (literally!) is Omoide Yokocho, or "Memory Lane", an area of eighty shops in a two thousand-square meter area between Omote-dori and Yanagi-dori dating back to the post-Second World War period. Of those eighty shops, sixty are restaurants or bars, which all come to life during the late evening. I snapped this photo ony my last day in Tokyo in 2019, looking up the central Naka-dori alleyway; to my chagrin later on, photography in this area is strictly regulated by Omoide Yokocho's business association, who I hope in the event they find this photo will forgive me for my error in not asking whether or not I needed permission beforehand!

 

 

And now for some food porn: Iekei ramen, originating in Yokohama and featuring a pork-marrow and soy sauce broth paired with thick, straight noodles in a pairing guaranteed to satiate your hunger and send at least one shirt to the laundry with ramen-broth splatters on it. Located on the periphery of Omoide Yokocho along Omote-dori Street, Ichikakuya Shinjuku West Exit is one of thirteen branches (and one standup only counter) of this ramen chain located across Shinjuku City. Opening in January 2023 (and thus not included on the official Omoide Yokocho map), it seats 34 people across two levels, is open late, and has an ordering machine with English available. This was my dinner on the night of 5 June 2023 - a big bowl of ramen, gyoza dumplings, and a handle of chilled orange juice which cost just ¥300.

 

As an aside, my travel notes and messages on the Forum confirm that this was the day I went to Omiya to visit the Railway Museum (for the first time that trip), hustled back to Tokyo to meet up with @Tony Galiani for coffee at a Starbucks under the station, then looped back off to Nakano Broadway to hit up Mandarake Ryusenkeijiken and buy another two Tomytec trams. Meeting up with Tony that day was a real highlight of that trip, and thanks again to him for having juggled things with Mira and freeing up the time to do so. Hmm, that makes two trips where I've met up with Forum members, I'll have to see if I can keep that streak going over my next trip...

 

12 hours ago, Kingmeow said:

Interesting.  I've heard other things about APA hotels, just rumors, like they are not non-Japanese tourist friendly.

 

Perhaps some of the staff may not take kindly to gaijins staying, but even if that's the case I can't say that I've had any issues with the ones in the locations I've visited, or their staff. APA Hotels have been a good substitute for my preferred ibis Hotels, or in the case of Nagoya a functional but less than inspiring hotel on my 2019 stay. So I'd take some of those rumors with a grain of salt or two.

 

Alastair

[ED75-775]

And now, to conclude our ED75 tour of Shinjuku (at least, for now...) - the train shops!

 

  

 

This one needs no introduction with that logo - it's Popondetta! Located on the seventh floor of the Keio department store, it's a small shop but worth picking through if you're in the area. The store layout is the classic two-tiered Popondetta layout featuring Tomix Fine Track, a cityscape below and semi-urban meets rural above. Back when I took these photos (perhaps breaking some unspoken rules) there was a bookshop in front where I purchased a stamp book and Shinkansen encyclopedia; on this year's trip it had been replaced by a Sanrio character store.

 

 

Slightly further west (and a year later), Imon Shinjuku branch is located in an unassuming building on Kokusai-dori, just five to ten minutes away from Popondetta. Thanks to Paolo I made my first stop here in 2023 but didn't buy anything; in 2024 that was a slightly different story though! As I've mentioned in my 2023 holiday thread, some of the staircases here are a little cramped, to the point that while you'll be able to get up them alright, coming down you'll likely have to duck or chance a bump against the 'cushions' installed on the pinch points. The selection here, of course, is the standard excellent Imon selection.

 

 

Slightly further down on the intersection of Kokusai-dori and Sanbangai Street is Hobbyland Pochi Shinjuku, another happy place to pick through for second-hand trains. It's up on the third floor, accessed through a staircase on Sanbangai Street, and is your typical, run-of-the-mill poky store crammed full of train stuff - probably even more poky than the HLP store near the Radiokan in Akihabara, though there were a lot of boxes in there on my visits. There's no layout here, but there is a short test track to check whether your new toy works properly.

 

Having not yet visited Karamatsu to see what railwayana they hold, the only other shop I can recommend looking at is Yodobashi Camera's hobby section, on the store's third floor accessed from the semi-separate Game and Hobby store in the Kono Building on Nibangai Street. As @railsquid would famously mention in 2014, "The music/announcements-on-a-loop may drive you mad." Personally, I don't it mind them but then I've never stayed long enough for them to really get annoying!

 

Next time's offerings will take us to Shinjuku Station's platforms, and then further afield. Stay tuned!

 

Alastair

[Kingmeow]

10 hours ago, ED75-775 said:

...hustled back to Tokyo to meet up with @Tony Galiani for coffee at a Starbucks under the station, then looped back off to Nakano Broadway to hit up Mandarake Ryusenkeijiken and buy another two Tomytec trams. Meeting up with Tony that day was a real highlight of that trip, and thanks again to him for having juggled things with Mira and freeing up the time to do so. Hmm, that makes two trips where I've met up with Forum members, I'll have to see if I can keep that streak going over my next trip...

 

JNS*Forum...where members meet members in Japan!

 

We should try for a group meet in 2025.  😁

[ED75-775]

We now arrive in the beating heart of it all: Shinjuku Station. With around five million passengers per day, pre-2020, it's the world's busiest railway station and a great place to hang out, if you like lots of commuter train action with a side helping of longer-distance expresses. While there's plenty of action to be seen from the platforms, there's nothing unique here about most of my photos which in many cases are just the trains themselves and not much else.

 

  

 

Case in point, the example on the left from my first day in 2019 showing one of the then-Yamanote Line E231-500 series trains. At that time I liked them more than the E235 series sets which were starting to take over; I've now since made peace with them though I am disappointed that due to 'global circumstances' I wasn't afforded a trip in 2020 to ride the last ones before they were cascaded to Sobu Line duties. Getting back on point, these photos were taken within minutes of each other, and for some funny reason the E235 had flowers displaying in its destination sign - a quirk only found on the Yamanote sub-variant of the E235. Now what's the story behind that, I wonder?

 

 

Jumping forward to my first day in 2024, standing at the end of the platform and playing with my camera's inbuilt zoom function netted this E233-7000 as it ran in on a Saikyo Line service. Shinjuku's skyline sprawls in the background including neko-chan's screen just above the leading car. Memory tells me I'd just returned from Nakano so this likely may have been taken from the eastbound Chuo Line platform.

 

Alastair

[railsquid]

11 hours ago, ED75-775 said:

  

 

Case in point, the example on the left from my first day in 2019 showing one of the then-Yamanote Line E231-500 series trains. At that time I liked them more than the E235 series sets which were starting to take over; I've now since made peace with them though I am disappointed that due to 'global circumstances' I wasn't afforded a trip in 2020 to ride the last ones before they were cascaded to Sobu Line duties. Getting back on point, these photos were taken within minutes of each other, and for some funny reason the E235 had flowers displaying in its destination sign - a quirk only found on the Yamanote sub-variant of the E235. Now what's the story behind that, I wonder?

 

They show different flowers according to season. IIRC. TBH I haven't really paid too much attention recently, so no idea off the top of my head if they still do that.

 

23 hours ago, ED75-775 said:

Having not yet visited Karamatsu to see what railwayana they hold, the only other shop I can recommend looking at is Yodobashi Camera's hobby section, on the store's third floor accessed from the semi-separate Game and Hobby store in the Kono Building on Nibangai Street. As @railsquid would famously mention in 2014, "The music/announcements-on-a-loop may drive you mad." Personally, I don't it mind them but then I've never stayed long enough for them to really get annoying!

 

I fondly recall the post 3.11 "save all the electricity!" rationing period when they turned the music off completely...

 

PSA: you can, if so minded, get directly to the game/hobby building from the ground floor of the main store, though I can't begin to describe how.

 

On 11/28/2024 at 9:26 AM, ED75-775 said:

ED75 Approved Spot #4 - Shinjukugado Bridge

Heading the furthest north along the Yamanote, Chuo and Sobu Lines in Shinjuku, we reach Shinjukugado. Whether this just refers to two intersections or a part of Shinjuku, I am not certain - Japanese-language etymologists, chime in with your thoughts please!

 

"Gaado" (ガード) derives from "girder" and technically refers to the bridge, but in common usage "ガード" seems to refer to any section of elevated track.

 

The name here refers to the intersection under/around the bridge, though the intersections are actually separated into "East" and "West", and the whole thing has its own Wikipedia entry: 新宿大ガード.

 

Side node: the separate pedestrian tunnel on the north side (not the path next to the road) is decorated with a series of old photos from Shinjuku and surroundings.

[ED75-775]

Commuter trains aren't the only things running through Shinjuku so to round things off before we depart, a quick look at a few express services:

 

 

Snapped back on 18 May 2019, E257-500 set NB-16 was waiting to depart with, after some applied Google-fu, what I suspect to be a weekend-only Shinjuku Wakashio express. These weekend trains were operated at that stage by either five-car E257-500 series or nine-car E255 series sets, and although I suspect that I may have seen some E255s I haven't found any photos proving that.

 

 

Taken the same day and slightly later, I managed to catch my one and only 251 series blasting through Shinjuku. Given that it was heading northbound on a through track, I'd be inclined to wonder whether it may have been running as empty stock to Ikebukuro to commence a Super View Odoriko service from that station. Like the 215 series these would disappear during the pandemic years, with all four sets being withdrawn in March 2020, so this not-entirely great photo will have to remain my sole memory of the 251's.

 

 

Leaping forward to this year, I had hared over to take photos of a Tobu 100-series and was lucky enough to take a shot of both it and a passing E353 with the Shinjuku skyline in the background. I've had a slightly soft spot for the 100-series thanks to a childhood copy of Max Wade-Matthews' Great Railway Journeys of the World which featured photos of these trains as part of the Tokyo to Nikko route, but it's not soft enough to warrant the Tomix model in any of its forms.

According to an old blog from 2011, these sets occasionally turn up on JR metals running the joint JR-Tobu Spacia Kinugawa expresses, and occasionally on peak-season-only Spacia Nikko expresses. Reputedly at that time the interior of these trains made those of the JR 253 series look dated! Certainly the photos on the blog reinforce that.

 

We've already seen E259's on Narita Express services earlier, so I think we've covered a broad cross-section by now of what can be seen here. Time to move on to our next destination!

 

Alastair

Edited yesterday at 02:26 AM by ED75-775

[ED75-775]

We now step away from the JR lines and head downstairs to the Toei subway lines, essential to reach our next destination. I never travelled on any of these in 2019, but then at that stage I didn't have any interest in Japanese N scale, at least until the end of the trip when I purchased a couple of what I thought would be desk models. Yeah, right...

 

These photos date from 2023 when, armed with a Welcome Suica, I decided to venture away from the beaten track I'd already trodden in search of some more bargains. The Toei Shinjuku Station however managed to confound me until I managed to get my bearings and onto the right platform! This first photo was taken on the 'wrong' platforms for the Keio Line, which is where I ended up first. Note the little trolleys hidden under the platform end, which I thought was a nice little detail.

 

 

Having managed to get on the 'right' track literally, I found my way to the Ōedo Line platforms and onto the 'right' train. Here we are at Ochiai-minami-nagasaki Station, which I think will be as good a giveaway as any as to where I was heading...

 

 

And if that wasn't giveaway enough, this really will! This was a good enough reinforcement that I was on the right track, literally. While the poster does handily include a little map for intending customers, I feel like I used either my Apple Maps app or Google to guide me on my way. Pocket wifi routers really are awesome! (At least, when they work.)

 

 

Alastair