氷山

Harajuku and Shibuya are two of the most fashionable areas of Tokyo and between them fittingly lies one of the metropolis' most fashionable buildings.


Standing seven stories above the landscape, the Iceberg is one of the more unique skyscrapers in Tokyo.

Turquoise glass and a mashup of varying angles makes the building, designed by Creative Designers International (cdi) standout against the atmosphere on the stretch of land between Harajuku and Shibuya.


There is a transparent elevator on the front of the Iceberg, planted in the middle of opposing triangulated glass panels.

The building was designed to look like a crystal or iceberg (according to its designers), and stands in sharp contrast to the nondescript structures on either side it.


The Iceberg houses the Audi Forum Tokyo, one of the 10 Audi Fourms in the world. It was listed as one of the 7 architectural wonders in the world by the Conde Nast Traveller.

Inside are showrooms and presentation areas. The Iceberg also hosts art exhibitions as well as various Audi-related presentations.

Access: Audi Forum Tokyo 6-12-18, Jingu Mae, Shibuya-Ku, Tokyo
Open from 10:00AM-8:00
A 2-minute walk from Meiji-Jingu Mae Station on the Chiyoda Line or 5 minute walk from JR Harajuku Station on the Yamanote line.

© Jason Coskrey & JapanVisitor.com

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渋谷C.C.Lemonホール

CC Lemon Hall in Shibuya, Tokyo is a large (2,000 seat) concert hall used mainly for J-pop concerts. The space is also rented out for private or public events and is used on Adults Day in Japan for speeches by the mayor addressing young people who have just turned 20.



CC Lemon Hall is south of Yoyogi Park near to the Shibuya Ward Office and a short stroll from Shibuya Station on the Yamanote Line. CC Lemon is a popular soda drink in Japan.



CC Lemon Hall
1-1 Udagawa-cho
Shibuya-ku
Tokyo, 150-0042
Tel: 03 3463 3022

© Guillaume Marcotte & JapanVisitor.com

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渋谷駅 モヤイ像



Shibuya Station is famous for its Hachiko statue - so famous in fact that the exit near the statue is named after it. However, the south exit of Shibuya Station also has a statue - a much bigger one - that isn't as famous: the Moyai.

This massive statue is based on the moai statues of Easter Island, and was donated to Tokyo by Niijima Village in the Izu Islands south of Tokyo, which are officially a part of Tokyo. It was 1980, and the occasion was the celebration of Tokyo's 100th year as capital of Japan (which previously had been Kyoto).

Niijima Village is the source of the stone of which this statue is made. The word "moyai" is a word in the Japanese dialect of Niijima Village meaning "to work together," and by happy coincidence it sounds like "moai."

Although poor cousin to Hachiko, Shibuya Station's south exit moai is actually more memorable, in its grand, tragic simplicity, and, not least, its solitude in a spot only a minute's walk from the Shibuya shopping area - one of the Japan's most crowded places!

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ブラジル　祭り　東京



Japan, and Tokyo especially, has a huge Brazilian community, mainly made up of Brazilians of Japanese descent. The annual Brazil Festival in Tokyo turns the Jingumae area of Shibuya ward into Brazil for a day with the kind of let-your-hair-down party atmosphere that just doesn't happen anywhere else in Japan.

The air is filled with the scent of great food cooking, the sound of get-up-and-dance rhythms, and the whoops and laughter of a crowd that won't stop having fun.

There were performances happening on stage, but unlike most events of this kind, the real buzz was amongst the crowd - wherever you were - and the music coming from stage was just one more sight and sound to fuel the party spirit.

The sun smiled on the day - making a pleasant change from a very cloudy summer for Tokyo in 2009 - and all those present laughed along with it.

Check out the YouTube video of footage from this year's Brazilian Festival in Tokyo.


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ベティブープ

Betty Boop, an American creation from the early 1930s has always been a presence in Japan, with her beguiling blend of the child-like and the adult-sexy. She taps into Japan's obsession with the comic (especially the home-grown manga comic) and with cuteness, or kawaii.



Kawaii, roughly translated as “cute” is a cultural trend that began as an underground craze among Japanese schoolgirls in the 1970s for a particular writing style characterized by large, rounded letters, and interspersed with emoticon-style drawings. It was quickly taken aboard commercially, worked into manga art, and is now found even in officialdom, which freely uses kindergarten-level graphics in communications designed to persuade adults.

Emphasizing helplessness and vulnerability, the kawaii obsession fuels the “lolicon,” i.e. “Lolita complex," obsession with erotic depictions of young girls and, by extension, guarantees the popularity of that cutest and sexiest of characters, Betty Boop.

This Betty Boop figurine was snapped on the streets of Tokyo's Shibuya ward, a retro symbol of cute pointing shoppers to the appropriately named “Once Upon a Time” clothing store. The chain around her middle clearly serves the practical purpose of saving little Betty from abduction, but it would be a naïve passerby who didn’t see more in it that that.

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渋谷１０９

Shibuya 109, or just 109 (ichi-maru-kyu, in Japanese), is a landmark for women between the ages of 10 and 30.

The cylindrical building stands at a fork in the road just up a slope from the scramble intersection in front of Shibuya Station, in Tokyo.

Within its eight above-ground and two underground floors one can find the latest fashions in Japan.

In addition, it is a sociologists dream. On each floor, you will find many boutiques, each offering a very defined fashion look. The women who work as clerks in these shops wear the clothes of the shop--and the attitude appropriate to the look.

The pinker the fashion, the cuter the look and behavior of the clerks. In the hip-hop influenced shops, the attitude was considerably cooler.

In one boutique, the two women clerks flew around the tiny shop screaming "irashaimase" (welcome). They both were deeply tanned, short, cute, and were sporting completely blonde hair, short cotton skirts, and lots of bangles. Across the hall, in a much more subdued place, the tall reserved female clerks barely noticed customers.

The mall was packed with Japanese women, all under 30, and legions of Asian tourists, many of whom were on the wrong side of 30.

In total, there were 50+ shops, some with wonderful names.

Some of my favorites were:

baby Shoop
Bumbie
DazzliN'
Shagadelic
Shake Shake

and, of course, XOXOkisskiss.


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秋のファション：足と入れ墨

On a recent trip to Tokyo, I wandered around Shinjuku, Daikanyama, and the Harajuku/Omotesando areas and was struck by many things.

One surprise for someone coming up from Kyoto was the number of tattoos, especially on women. In Kansai, tattoos are still a bit rare. Mobsters, of course, and the occasional college student or artist have tattoos.

In Tokyo, however, tattoos were everywhere.

And on all parts of the body.

We saw countless tattoos high up on the thigh just barely visible under a skirt or hot pants, just next to cleavage, on the back of the neck, the side of the ankle, the shoulder blade, etc.

The woman with the Mickey Mouse tattoo--it's real--on her calf was waiting for a train at Shibuya Station. Her exposed shoulders featured elaborate dragons.

One sign that tattoos may even be a bit passe was that we spied a woman, in her late 20s, who had the telltale scars on her left arm of tattoo removal. She was feeding a baby in an Italian coffee shop.

Another, more attractive, surprise were leggings.

Women of all ages sported all sorts of leggings.

The women pictured at left was in her early- to mid-40s, very attractive, and made quite an impression with her brilliantly colored and patterned leggings. She is strolling along Omotesando on a recent Saturday.

Few if any openly stared at her as she paraded along the tree-lined street thronged with tourists and locals.

The clack-clack of her heels punctuated the colors as they shifted along her legs while she walked.



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