LUXOMME

One of the most recognizable landmarks in Tokyo is the famed Shibuya crossing. It's featured in movies, in tv, and littered all over the social media. Simply put, it's a pretty happening place.

Insisting on taking advantage of this opportunity to finally experience the mayhem that is Shibuya, I urged Tiffany to locate it on google maps - so that we could go take a look see. She took me to this three way crossing and announced that we had arrived, and bewildered, I took in my surroundings.

To suggest I was dissapointed was putting it lightly. It was nothing like what I had seen on TV! Despite being a busy crossing, there were few people compared to what I had seen in pictures. Did I fall prey to some tourist scam?

Surely this couldn't be it.

Slightly confused, I turned to Tiffany and told her that I thought that Shibuya crossing was four ways, and not three. She paused, insisting that this place that we had arrived at was definitely the crossing. 

At least according to Google. 

Not satisfied with her answer, I decided to map it out myself, and 10 minutes later we found ourselves in the middle of this mayhem, flanked by sky high buildings covered in bright animated LCD screens.  Now this was the real deal.

After experiencing the crossing firsthand, which made us feel like tiny ants scrambling on top of each other, we decided to ascend to a higher level to admire the excitement from up top.

Watch the crowds begin to move.

We stayed long enough to watch people cross a few times over - which is difficult to observe when you're caught up in the middle of it, but interesting from up top. Careful when you cross though, most crossers are tourists who are either wearing a gopro on their forehead, holding a really long selfie stick (which is a hazard in itself), or people like me - going snap happy with my camera and trying not to run into anyone but sometimes failing miserably.

  Satisfied with the fact that we had found the REAL Shibuya crossing, and not the fake one that Google led us to believe, we braved the crossing one last time, and headed towards the underground. After a long day of exploring, we shuffled in with important looking businessmen and tried not to fall asleep on the way home.

naomi