Shimokitazawa

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 I tend to avoid staying in the city center of a big metropolitan city for a number of reasons. Staying outside of city center is generally easier on the wallet and is a much more local experience. Many tourist would opt for a hotel in Shinjuku or Shibuya while in Tokyo, but we chose to stay in Shimokitazawa. Its only a few stops southwest of Shibuya on the Keio Inokashira rail line, but it feels like a small town in the midst of a concrete jungle. 

We booked a place on AirBnB and had the hardest time using the Japanese address system. It was a modest room in a house across the alley from an elementary school. This was the view from our front steps. 

Shimokitazawa is a neighborhood full of cafes, restaurants, boutiques, and thrift shops. While neighborhoods like this are gaining popularity in the US, it is just the norm here. The density of Tokyo allows for neighborhoods filled with small local business. Its a huge contrasts to some US cities I've driven through where shopping and dining take place in a big shopping center with big box retailers and chain restaurants. How many times have you driven by a Walmart and Denny's on the interstate?



Human powered transportation is the preferred means of getting around. Bicycles are so common place that they are not locked to a permanent structure. Each bike has a small wheel lock and is just left on the street. If bikes in NYC were locked like bikes in Tokyo, they would be gone before you could even blink. 

This is the station that I visited on a daily basis. There is a ground level station with a train going into Shibuya to transfer. On my last day in Shimo, I discovered a series of underground corridors in the station connecting to a larger underground station with trains going into Shinjuku.

Infrastructure seems like its constantly being improved in Tokyo. A few blocks away from the Shimokitazawa Keio Station, another rail station was in the works. 

The streets are still bustling with life when night falls. 

I'm constantly being impressed by the performance of the Ricoh GR. This shot was taken at ISO 12800 but has none of the nasty digital noise I've been used to, but instead the noise has a very film grain like texture. The recent Ricoh acquisition of Pentax also brought the TAV mode to the Ricoh mode dial. This mode lets me select the aperture and shutter speed while letting the camera run wild with the ISO to get the correct exposure. Since the high iso performance is so superb with the GR, I have no problems with letting the camera choose a high ISO.