Shibuya Crossing
The Biggest Scramble in the World
Shibuya Crossing is a crossroads located at the Hachiko Exit of Shibuya station in Tokyo. Characterized by its overcrowded pedestrian crossings including a diagonal one, the place attracts sightseers interested in immersing in the crowd, under the lights of the surrounding buildings committed to shopping and entertainment.
Upon leaving Shibuya train 🚅 station and passing by the statue of Hachiko, the famous Shibuya Crossing in Tokyo sees tens of thousands of Japanese pedestrians pass through it every day and is one of the busiest intersections in the whole world. It can very well remind of New York's Times Square, especially through its amazing lighting-up.
Crossing it makes you reach the famous Shibuya 109 (whose historical logo was redesigned in 2018 and is now in the same colors as Instagram’s). The building is renowned for its numerous fashion boutiques for young Japanese girls from the neighborhood.
The large intersection is constitutive to the Japanese pop culture and particularly photogenic. It was a setting for movies such as Lost in Translation and Fast and Furious Tokyo Drift.
Here's a video of Shibuya Crossing we shot during one of out travels in Tokyo. The view point from the Starbucks is often cited as a good observatory, but seats are so rarely available that it is almost useless to try. This footage was made from the opposite side, from the station’s passageway in the early afternoon of a weekday, under the blazing sun of the Japanese summer.
From this point of view, it seems that going through this crossroads with so many people can be a nightmare. But Japanese people are quite vigilant, and it's rare to bump into someone else. It might less easy under the rain ☔️, when it comes to dodging umbrellas!
Shibuya Scramble Square, the tall "east tower" was completed above the station in 2019. Of 230 meters high, it includes 46 floors (and 7 more underground), and an outdoor 360° observatory at its top, the Shibuya Sky, offering a view on the crossing and the surroundings and up to Mount Fuji 🗻 on a clear weather day.
If you are traveling to Japan, you should definitely try to go through Shibuya Crossing on a Friday or early Saturday evening. This is an interesting and quite fun experience!
On Halloween 🎃 night and the weekend preceding October 31, party-goers and cosplayers flock to the place during the evening.
A 9 seconds respite…
A webcam was set to observe 24 hours of the Shibuya Crossing and find a moment in the day, or more precisely during the night, where no human being nor vehicle appears on screen.
The result is 9 seconds of silence and motionlessness in one of the most frequented places in the world.
Watch this incredible moment in the time-lapse video below: