ED75's Random Japanese Trip Photos

[ED75-775]

Tsugi wa Shibuya. Shibuya desu...

 

Yep, we're heading next to Shibuya which for once is not solely about trains! While I'll freely admit to having struck Imon Shibuya on my 2024 trip, on both my 2023 and 2024 trips I've been there to visit the Starbucks Reserve Roastery. And yes, I also had to do a few tourist-y things because why not?

 

 

 

Starting this time with my 2024 photos - I spent a bit of time lurking on the station platforms, but there's not much variety here beyond what you'd see at Shinjuku, so we won't linger here too long. Adding an E235 to my fleet remains on the 'to-do' list though I'm not sure if that'll be crossed off in 2025. Maybe if one comes up at the right price, perhaps?

 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Shibuya Station ranks as second-busiest in the world with three million passengers per day pre-pandemic, at least according to this Japan Today article. That's a lot of people... Alright, let's get out of here. It's getting a bit crowded!

 

Alastair

Edited January 4 by ED75-775

[ED75-775]

For most tourists, Shibuya means one thing - scramble crossing. I've stopped here both times in 2023 and 2024, and this time we're jumping back to 2023 on the way back to Shinjuku after a meal stop at the Reserve Roastery.

 

 

This is the scramble crossing, or at least part of it, as I wandered across to get a photo of at least some of it. I think I was more interested in the many brightly-lit screens here then anything else... note also that I was walking across the road as I took this, so would have definitely been in dumb-tourist mode. Not a good idea!

 

 

Also relatively close by, the statue of Hachiko - the famous dog who waited at the station for nine years after his owner, Professor Hidesaburō Ueno died in 1925. Thanks to a 1932 newspaper article though the story of Hachiko and his loyalty would live on. While a statue of Hachiko would first be placed here in 1934, sculpted by Teru Andō, it was scrapped during World War II; the current statue dates from 1948 and was sculpted by Andō's son Takeshi. It's a highly popular tourist spot now, to the point I found it pretty hard to get a decent photo of in 2023.

 

Alastair

 

[ED75-775]

Heading slightly further into Shibuya, it's hard to miss Shibuya 109, a Tokyu Group-owned department store targeted at women. The name - 109 - is actually a wordplay which I didn't know until again looking it up: firstly it's a reference to its owner (10-9 in Japanese is tō-kyū...) and secondly, its operating hours of 10:00AM to 9:00PM. I didn't feel compelled to go in and look, as my main reason for being there was... the Imon Shibuya store just up the road. Yep. One-track mind!

 

 

Admittedly the Imon store in Shibuya is not bad, it's about the same size as the Shinjuku one although a good chunk of space has been taken up by what looks to be a H0 scale layout at the front of the store. I'm not sure if it was a H0j layout or a H0 13.2mm layout, as that's not my area of specialization. But anyway, it's worth a visit if you're in the area!

 

 

This view from memory came a little later in the day as I waited for the local branch of Mandarake to open. I'd just stopped at Tokyu Hands to use the bathroom and quickly snapped this shot on the way back to Mandarake. And though the camera doesn't do a good job of showing it, I'm actually standing on a slope, with only the fence on my left and retaining wall on the other side of the road giving that way you'd be forgiven for not realizing that straight away!

 

Alastair

Edited January 4 by ED75-775

[ED75-775]

Time for another quick update while I wait for the 2025 Märklin New Items video to drop. Last time we were still over in Shibuya on our way to Mandarake; now, we jump over to Nakameguro for a quick look along another drainage - no, sorry, that's the Meguro River, which has been once again concrete-lined to prevent damage to local properties.

 

 

And here is the sole reason for being out here: the Starbucks Reserve Roastery! Opened in February 2019 and designed by Kengo Kuma, this roastery is the only one purpose-built as such with all five others being housed in converted buildings. At three thousand square meters across four floors, it's an impressive location and a great place to stop for a snack. Or if you prefer, there's coffee, tea, cocktails, souvenirs... Yes, it's a little bit more expensive than the average Starbucks and doesn't have the full menu of drink options you'd find at a regular branch, but it's an experience in and of itself. Well worth a trip if you're in the area, even if you prefer the 'local' offerings to a multinational chain business.

 

 

Alastair

[ED75-775]

A few quick interior shots before moving on once more - this time towards Tokyo itself.

 

   

 

These jugs and dispensers caught my eye due to the unique designs - how whimsical and unique. Though that could be said of the entire interior with the massive copper-cad roasting cask rising through all four floors and surrounding by sakura blossoms (again copper - contrasting nicely with the Japanese cedar exterior cladding.)

 

 

Jumping back to my first visit in 2023, and this is the ground-floor area known as the Reserve Roastery with the larger of the two on-site roastery areas off to the right, the main counter directly ahead with the Princi Bakery area and stairs up behind that. The many pipes hanging from the roof are part of the bean delivery systems that feed both the roasters with raw product, and deliver it to either storage silos pending bagging onsite and distribution across Japan, or direct to the staff for use in brewing customer beverages. The mezzanine second-floor hosts the Teavana tea bar. I'll let this SoraNews article speak for the various other parts of the complex I won't be showing - otherwise we might be here awhile at what is the largest Starbucks in the world.

 

 

And to wrap up before we move on, here's a view during dinner across Nakameguro from the fourth-floor balcony. The third and fourth floors have great balconies where you can sit and enjoy your meal and beverage should you prefer to do so, otherwise there's a bit of seating inside including some gallery seating around the third-floor roastery section. I got lucky enough to film that in action last year!

 

And finally, to those who have made it this far with me, thank you for joining me on the journey. Please bear with me over the coming months because I'll be ramping up my postings (hopefully!) to a more regular basis, the reason being... I am planning another trip to Japan for mid-2025! I've set myself the target of reaching the end of my previous three holidays in photos before I embark on trip number four, which will no doubt be as vicarious as the last few. And hopefully this time I will be more restrained and not set out to achieve the goal of absolutely demolishing my wallet in the name of trains!

 

Alastair

Edited January 8 by ED75-775

[ED75-775]

Tsugi wa Shinbashi. Shinbashi desu...

Continuing our circle-ish tour around the Yamanote Line anticlockwise, we pass briefly through Shinagawa on our way to our next stop, Shinbashi. I didn't spend much time here at all, most trips I've just passed through though in 2019 on my first trip to Yokohama I stopped here briefly to transfer from the shinkansen to a Yamanote Line train to get home. To date it's been the only time I've done this, as on successive trips I've had a Suica card of any variant rather than a JR Pass for my Tokyo leg, and I've found the Saikyo Line to be the best way of doing the Yokohama-Shinjuku trip as it's both cheaper and I can ride it right back to Shinjuku without changing trains!

 

  

 

One quirky thing I noticed on the Shinagawa concourse was this post box which has been thoughtfully themed as a KuMoYuNi luggage and mail electric rail car. Not sure how the 0 kilometer post features into all of this as the original Tokyo terminus was closer to Shinbashi than Shinagawa. But it's a neat detail nonetheless!

 

Alastair

Edited January 8 by ED75-775

[railsquid]

6 minutes ago, ED75-775 said:

  

 

One quirky thing I noticed on the Shinagawa concourse was this post box which has been thoughtfully themed as a KuMoYuNi luggage and mail electric rail car. Not sure how the 0 kilometer post features into all of this as the original Tokyo terminus was closer to Shinbashi than Shinagawa. But it's a neat detail nonetheless!

 

Alastair

 

It represents the 0km post for the Yamanote Line and the Hinkaku Line (品鶴線, aka the Yokosuka Line).

 

 

[ED75-775]

Finally, we arrive at our next stop: Shinbashi, or, as it's sometimes transliterated, Shimbashi which is the version I'll stick to using from here on. The current station is a short distance - about 100 meters as the crow flies - from the original Shimbashi station, referred to as Shimbashi Teishajō. That building was demolished in 1914 to make way for Shiodome Freight Station, which closed in 1986, which in turn enabled the construction of a recreated Teishajō station which opened in 2003 as a historical site. Further south are the remains of the Takanawa Embankment, which were unearthed in 2022 and are now partially-listed as this article confirms.

 

 

During my 2023 visit, there was no escaping the history of this site (and had I known the old Shimbashi station site was so close by, maybe I'd have made the effort to visit it). From the images plastered on the floor of the concourse displaying various trains and locomotives which have worked through Shimbashi...

 

 

...to this rather elegant stained-glass window. I suspect the peacock may be a reference to the nearby Hama-rikyū Gardens, once the seventeenth-century abode of the Tokugawa shogunate and now a public garden, although whether there were historically peacocks there I've no idea.

 

 

Alastair

Edited Thursday at 11:50 AM by ED75-775
Clarification of text

[ED75-775]

And as a final reminder of this area's railway history, there's a steam locomotive right out the front of the station!

 

 

According to the steamlocomotivejapan website, C11 292 was built in 1945 by Nippon Sharyo, and spent its working life firstly in Osaka and later Himeji where it was last used in July or August of 1972; it wasn't however formally written off until September of that year by which time it had been moved to Shimbashi for static display. It's now a well-looked-after display piece in front of the station, and the whistle has been piped up to work on compressed air which it does twice daily at 3:00PM and 5:00PM.

 

 

 

Heading over to the other side of the station, and taken on my way back from a detour out to Daiba, was this banner again showing several trains and locomotives connected with this area, and the main driving wheelset from (I think) a D51 class locomotive.

 

 

Eki-stamp location: This one's hidden under the arches on the southern concourse so takes a bit of hunting. It features of course the C11 in silhouette form, which makes it well worth seeking out. That I did take the time to seek it out, I can thank @Tony Galiani for that after he told me two days before about the C11. I shall of course endeavor to post a few more of these stamp stations where possible, but unfortunately not the stamps to go with them.

 

Alastair

[Tony Galiani]

Funny thing is I had just learned about the C11 a few days before we met in Tokyo.  Spotted it from the train and subsequently went by there to check it out.

BTW - learning a lot from these posts and looking forward to your 2025 iteration.

Cheers,

Tony

[ED75-775]

Time for a brief diversion! On my 2023 trip I took the Yurikamome people mover out to Daiba to visit the Gundam Base and have a look around that area. I spent quite a bit of time out there just browsing, and buying a plush Miffy toy from a shop there (being of Dutch descent, I grew up with Miffy as a child).

 

 

If memory serves, this was taken beyond Shibaura-Futō on the spiral leading up to the Rainbow Bridge and looking more-or-less towards Tennozu and the Shinagawa Container Wharf. Keep heading south from here, and eventually you'll pass the JR Central Oi shinkansen depot (plus the JR Freight training school and Shinagawa freight terminal) and wind up near Haneda Airport. The Oi depot area looks interesting, at least from Google Maps, with the satellite view showing not only a M250 freight unit laying over in the sidings on the narrow-gauge side, but also both Doctor Yellows in the shinkansen sidings!

 

 

Arriving in Daiba and getting out of chronological order here (I was getting ready to head home) is this statue of the RX-0 Unicorn Gundam, from the Mobile Suit Gundam anime series of the same name. During my visit I got to see it configured in Destroy Mode, which it does four times daily as noted by this Japan Travel article. My own association with the statue came from watching Gundam Build Divers which occasionally featured the Unicorn on-screen. Apparently it has also cropped up in one of the Love LIVE! series too, though I've not gotten into those so won't comment.

 

 

Also hitting up the Gundam Base inside, there's more than just shopping for kits or spending time in the workshop space customizing them. At the time of my visit, the G-Base had some dioramas recreating events from the then-current series Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury, including this one based on a moment in Episode 12 when Suletta breaks out her Gundam's big gun and absolutely clears the field with it... on a low-power setting, no less.

I was quite taken with the dioramas, and snapped photos of all of them; while I probably won't go deep into Gundam modelling, I can at least appreciate the effort made by the modelers who built these dioramas, and maybe crib a few ideas from them too for down the track.

 

Next time, we head back to the Yamanote Line and continue on towards Tokyo.

 

Alastair

[ED75-775]

Back in 2023 I had the opportunity to train back to Shinjuku from Shimbashi and get dinner again at a favourite curry restaurant... instead I didn't, and decided to take a walk up the Yamanote Line. Not entirely a bad idea, I guess...

 

 

It was mid-evening by the time I got back to Shimbashi and started walking. Still busy out at that time of night, or so it felt to me, and I couldn't resist snapping a quick 'slice of life' scene along the way.

 

 

Before long, I found myself winding up at Yūrakuchō - or, as I pointed out on my 2023 trip blog - @Kamome442's layout, which I am sure will be one of the greatest exhibition layouts ever when it finally reaches that point. Reading each progress update is a joy; keep at it, Joe! This was the view looking towards the south exit of the station, taken in full dumb-tourist mode as I meandered across the pedestrian crossing.

 

 

Blurry grab shot, yes - topical? Also yes. I believe this is the bridge on the module Joe is currently building. Apologies, it isn't a very good shot but just 'for the record'.

 

Alastair

[ED75-775]

On reaching Yūrakuchō, I needed to stop for dinner, and a surprise discovery was this Oginoya shop in the arches under the station. For those not familiar with the name, Oginoya are the family business that has been making toge-no-kamameshi, the famous ekiben from Yokokawa Station in Gunma Prefecture, of Usui Pass and Shin'etsu Main Line fame. This shop opened post-pandemic, and has been a good spot to get your fix from if you can't get to some of Oginoya's other retail partners across Tokyo.

 

 

And speaking of toge-no-kamameshi, here it is! Traditionally it's served in a Mashiko pottery bowl, and certain options allow you to buy the bowl and its contents (current Oginoya price at time of checking: ¥‎1,400) although I don't recall how much I paid for mine, and not being sure I didn't want to ask if I was allowed to keep the bowl (possibly not with the option I paid for). It was an interesting dish, whether I'd have it again or seek out one of their other options I'm not sure, and those picked vegetables in the little plastic container had my taste buds cockatoo screaming! Oginoya's website does suggest that there are other options than the standard so perhaps I'll have to seek one out. There are a few other locations across Tokyo that'll sell you toge-no-kamameshi including the major ekiben shop on the Tokyo Station concourse.

 

 

Having thus satiated and revulsed myself in unequal measures, we now march onwards to the north entrance to Yūrakuchō Station, and yet another bridge for Joe to build. Just a random grab-shot so again not much detail, sorry Joe!

 

 

Given that this photo was taken a short time later, I'd like to suggest that the Yūrakuchō eki-stamp is located near the northern entrance to the station, but I can't recall. Given all the walking I had to do, which I think I did solely for the eki-stamp (!), it would have been rude not to have gotten it.

 

 

Alastair

[ED75-775]

Jumping back to 2019 to conclude our whistle-stop tour of Yūrakuchō, this was the view from the leading carriage of E231-550 as it ran anticlockwise through Yūrakuchō on its way to Tokyo. Four trains in one picture if you include the fact I was on board one myself when I took this! Thanks again to Joe who helped me to identify, via his layout thread, where I was at the time when I took this.

 

 

Alastair