Walking Every Street in Shibuya #01 Sakuragaoka area

Nice to meet you. My name is Subaru Matsukura, one of the founders of 404 Not Found. I’m usually in a town or a bar somewhere in Japan for work, and I’m based in Kyoto and sometimes in Shibuya.

This project was also treated as a “regional project” at our company, and we naturally assumed that Shibuya was one of the regions. As a visitor to the city, knowing the city was the most important factor…but due to Shibuya’s strength or overwhelming recognition, I thought I knew the city. I am ashamed of myself.

When I came to Shibuya again, I found that some things had changed from the Shibuya I had visited before, and some things had remained the same for a long time. I realized that perhaps I had been processing the stereotypical image of Shibuya on my own.

Then, I thought it would be interesting to take a long walk in Shibuya, or rather, to walk all the streets of Shibuya. Although it was a light idea, I knew that it would be a heavy process, so I began an attempt to complete a walk along all the streets of Shibuya in the form of a series of articles, taking advantage of the gaps in the schedule.

This is the first installment.

First of all, when one examines how large Shibuya Ward is, one finds that it is not as large as one might expect.
However, it looks like a labyrinth of streets spread out in a super-crowded mesh-like pattern. I wanted to get a more physical overview of Shibuya, so I got a white map of Shibuya Ward. The plan was to walk along the streets here and discover a Shibuya I had never known before.

A city is made up of many elements. We tend to focus on the symbolic things, but we should also pay attention to the things that are usually overlooked. Walk slowly, stop and take a peek at a store you don’t know, or just relax in the park. I will soak in a public bath I find while strolling, pass under the curtain of a store I don’t know, and enjoy the unknown aspects of Shibuya that I encounter each time I stroll around.

I gave myself one reward for stepping over the entire Shibuya Ward.
It is.

The idea was, “I was allowed to spend only half of the number of steps I walked that day.“
If you walk 10,000 steps, you can spend 5,000 yen. After all, it’s from my allowance, but I started the first day with the DIY reward rule.

Start of Shibuya Sakura Stage on the eve of the opening

Just then, we started our walk with Sakura-zaka as the starting line.
Aiming for a gap in the flurry of activity before the opening, I start walking as if I were skipping.

The style of the man was that of an old man out for a walk with a camera in hand.
I took a few pictures in a glass-finished building with a mirror finish, but thinking about it calmly, the author would have been in full view from inside.

When I looked up Sakuragaoka-cho, I found that it used to be called Owada-cho as well.
I had thought that there was no such thing as a town name that was lost in the middle of Tokyo, but in my selfish author’s extraterritorial prejudice, I found that many things in Shibuya have been consolidated and abolished in various ways. I would be happy if I could find any remnants of Owada in this walk.

Ah! Found a meeting place.
I often take a walk outside of Shibuya, and sometimes I see gatherings of the same kind.
This time, fire extinguishers. Perhaps they collected fire extinguishers that had expired.
I was curious and checked that fire extinguishers produced in Japan are handled by fire extinguisher distributors and fire prevention and security businesses as specific contact points, and that there are as many as 5,000 take-back contact points nationwide. I will keep that in mind.

Once you care about one fire extinguisher, you care about the others.
This is something that caught my eye…isn’t Shibuya Ward amazing? I have never seen public fire extinguishers in the city where I live… I thought fire buckets filled with water were the norm. These were pretty much everywhere.

I pushed on down a street I had never walked down before, and found a store that caught my attention.

Wow! It’s Totodo! An antiquarian bookstore that I had only met through the Internet. Tokyo is such a joy. Wow, it’s real! It’s like that.。

If you are involved in graphics, architecture, art, photography, or any of these professions, you will know him. I met him just after the start of the walk. I’ll visit with a bigger bag at a slightly better time. I promise.

A good scenery when you meet a store you know very well in Shibuya, which you do not know, and take a few steps forward.
There are traces of life, signs of activity, and it is solid. There is a townscape that I didn’t know, or actually had in my field of vision, but hadn’t seen.

There are many opportunities to receive some underutilized property from all over the country.
Sometimes we sleep there while creating projects, and sometimes we use it as a secret base with the people of the town. Sometimes we wake up in the morning to the ocean, sometimes to the mountains, but here we are in the midst of the towering buildings of Shibuya. What kind of life will it be like? Can someone give me a room? I am beginning to feel that nature and the city are no different. I guess it is a matter of how we adapt ourselves to live in the city.

Suddenly, looking at a telegraph pole, a voice says, “Hey, we’re entering a fashionable town“.
Is Daikanyama that close? My sense of distance bugs me. Is it a distance that I can walk?
Therefore, the image of Shibuya is fixed by the image of easy-to-understand towns such as Shibuya and Daikanyama. They don’t know about the in-between-the-lines part between the towns. That may be a waste of time.

Ah, look! Suddenly an airplane flying with an explosive sound is also in Shibuya!
This is a landscape that didn’t exist five years ago. I kept looking up unintentionally as it seemed to have changed over the years.
Suddenly, I looked from the sky to the land.

There is a lot of nature in Shibuya.
I feel as if there is more nature in the whole city than in Kyoto, where I live.
And then, hunger comes suddenly. I have an appetite for buckwheat noodles.

We found the first restaurant, Sobabo Asahiya Daikanyama, unfortunately until 3:00 p.m. We will take revenge.
This is Tokyo, surely there must be more soba restaurants…

There it is! Attack begins.

I knew it – I knew it – but I’m getting ready. Still, it’s a good name.
”Fusho-an” has been in business for over 70 years. And I can come here myself without being intimidated by this world view in the fashionable town of Daikanyama. I will definitely visit. Or rather, I should take a walk from AM next time. That’s all there is to it.

While I was engrossed in the search for food, there were many spots that caught my attention, from a cute little swallow shop that made me think, Wow, Nakajima Rice Shop, they have a rice shop too…dry cleaning? From the cute little swallow store, which is also a rice shop…

There it is, the rice shop! The sign is cool. I didn’t know they had such a strong name.
That’s nice. I knew rice tastes better when you buy it at a rice shop. I’m not tough enough to buy rice at a rice shop, but I felt it was nice.

I found myself in Sakuragaoka-cho and Daikanyama, where unapproved parking is strictly prohibited,

I was alone in the middle of a huge artificial flower sculpture, saying,You’re not going that way, are you?
I found myself not in Daikanyama, but in the next town.

Sarugaku-cho. Like Daikanyama, it has a very unique name.
Daikanyama may have been named after a local government official, but there are many ambiguous theories. Sarugaku-cho in Shibuya is said to derive from Sarugaku-zuka, a round burial mound from the late Kofun period. The origin of the name goes back a long way.

I felt called to enter a path full of fragrant plants and trees,

We were invited by a red beckoning cat with an overwhelming presence, a red beckoning cat with an eyeball sticker that someone had put on top of a sticker that someone else had put on top of a sticker. And it was a dead end. A curse.

However, at the end of the road, quite rare and exquisite selected sense of ornaments.
I dare say that only the second one from the right is a cat. When I see such a good scenery, I have high expectations for more newcomers to the area.

As I went down the road at my leisure, I saw this from the gap between the buildings.

Construction… not this.
What’s going on here? and I run for this mysterious building in the daytime when the temperature is nearly 36 degrees Celsius.

Wow, that’s real. That’s a robot.
I’ve come to like the way Tokyo goes all out, regardless of the landscape or anything else. It looks like it could transform and even combine with other buildings.

At the entrance of the building is the Aoyama College of Drafting. It was a vocational school for students aiming to become architects and interior designers. I was strangely convinced and walked out to take a walk, and the joy of not expecting to encounter such an impactful school building was amazing. Thank you, Aoyama College of Drafting.

Well, it’s time to rehydrate under the shade of a tree.
In front of me is a cicada. I decide to go forward facing the direction in which this cicada flies away.

I was invited to Sakuragaoka-cho23! I’m home, Sakuragaoka!

Along the way, there was evidence that this was once the seabed.

Also, um, what’s this, I was glued to a large white blood cell-like object that I wanted to get on and rummage around in a great deal. I shouldn’t have ridden on it. I was at a loss.
What a surprise to find the name of this place, “Shibuya Ward Cultural Center Owada”! Yes, I found the remnants of Owada-cho, which used to be in Shibuya, as I mentioned at the beginning of this article. Thanks to the impact of the large white blood cells, I was able to go deeper and notice it. A treasure found alongside the Aoyama College of Draftsmanship. I am very happy.

Now, just as I was getting close to Sakura-zaka, the starting point of the tour, I walked up the hill.

I found a very nice tobacco shop. Next, I will buy here. And the one next to it was closed, unfortunately,

Perhaps the remnants of a liquor store.
Buy cigarettes next door, buy liquor here. There was a time when people used to sit somewhere in the city and enjoy a smoke and a drink decades ago. You can’t see that anymore. I wish I could see the scenery when this store was open.

So we arrived at Sakura-zaka, the starting point.
Wow, I didn’t realize how much fun I could have in a one-hour walk. And all kinds of Shibuya I didn’t know about. It was worth seeing. This time, the route seemed to be like this.

The number of steps I took was “6,446 steps” and half of this “3,223 yen” was my reward money this time.
I still have some work to do to prepare for the opening of my business, so I’ll avoid alcohol… places I can go with this money…

I found the perfect answer. SAUNAS, just after Sakura-zaka.

Weekdays for 2,800 yen (3,080 yen including tax), you will be able to sweat it out safely within your reward budget, and finally be ready to return to open for business. “Ah, Mr. Matsukura, it’s all set, isn’t it?”
I was quickly discovered.

---

Today I took a walk around Sakuragaoka area for about an hour (+ about an hour sauna) during the gap of the day before the opening.

There are a lot of stores that interest me. Of course, we would like you to come and play at 404 Not Found, but it is interesting not only to play here but also to play around in the whole of Shibuya.

Now, which town shall we go to next? I think I’ll start walking and decide at my leisure.