30 October 2018
The great Shibuya Halloween crush
Apparently, Halloween in Shibuya is one of the most popular Halloween celebrations in the world
OK, I thought earlier when I slid down a cliff on what may or may not have been a hiking trail many miles from any other person in the middle of nowhere in the bear infested woods was dangerous, but it has nothing on the famous Shibuya crossing at Halloween.
This was the worst crush I had ever been in, genuinely dangerous, groups of people were falling over on top of each other, there were surges that I could not resist, I just had to push the people in front of me.
There were lots of police yelling and blowing whistles, but this had no read effect on the massive crowd. The entire crossing was shutdown with crowd control, and a safety zone in the middle to pull people out of the crowd. A couple of police helicopters overhead were adding to confusion.
As for Halloween in Japan, in previous years I missed it or was disappointed, this year I found it, but the costumes were not as great as expected. I saw a few brave guys wearing banana slings but other than that the costume of choice was a school uniform, with blood, a sexy nurse outfit, with blood, a wedding dress, with blood, or very weirdly, whatever the yellow thing from despicable me is called.
There was probably a lot more to see, and I suspect it gets weirder the later you are there, but I was too tired at this point and had to get back to my hotel to type this nonsense.
The only issue with that, I had no chance of getting back into Shibuya station, and I also could not get back to main road to Harajuku, the crowd seemed to be all heading away from that point. Instead I had to walk a longer looping walk back through Yoyogi park to Harajuku, a fun time when you have already done 45,000 steps in a day.
Now I will try to photograph the crush of people, I should have gone for a higher shutter speed and let the iso go up, most of the photos are no higher than iso800.
A wolf with a real looking machine gun, it was an actual person but he would not move for a minute then move suddenly and frighten people.
Here is the crossing and the crush.
A bit more crush.
This is taken as I was halfway across, getting crushed, the police have set up a hole in the middle and would occasionally drag people out of the crush.
Once out of the crush I tried to find things to photograph. Heres some pumpkins.
I am a few blocks away from the crossing by now, but still theres a crush of sorts.
This person put some effort into their facial tumors.
The crush kept going and going.
I have no idea who or what these guys are.
Here is a clown, with blood. Actually it was printed on the suit I think?
I ended up in the love hotel and massage parlor streets trying to get to Harajuku. I dont really know whats going on behind the glass but lots of guys are watching and cheering.
My dinner choices were limited due to everything being full, so I chose curry from a place called J.S. Curry, where I ordered the J.S. Curry without knowing what it was. It was good, mystery meat, some vegetables, nuts and an egg!