31 October 2024
A shadow of it's former self
Halloween in Shibuya
I have been to Halloween in Shibuya a number of times. It is now basically dead.
Sure there are a lot of people, mostly tourists like me, going there to see people in crazy costumers, but the people in crazy costumes are no longer there.
The mayors of Shibuya and now Shinjuku too have banned everything Halloween related due to fears of a crowd crush / foreigner satanists / pressure from the unification church of Korea. Alcohol is now banned too, which is probably what successfully killed it dead for the locals.
Last year they had all the signs advising that Halloween is cancelled but this year they have made it all one way walking and with extra pedestrian traffic control at 'the crossing' and all the surrounding streets making sure you move along until you are gone.
At least 2 of the pictures I stopped to take I had a police officer yell in my ear with a bullhorn, presumably to keep moving.
So that is probably the end of that.
After the Halloween supervised one way procession looking at people who's idea of a costume was a bag on their head or some bunny ears at best, I decided to walk to a station a bit away from Shibuya and subway it back to my hotel and find dinner locally, but then I found a nice Thai place so ate there. And it was actually spicy when I ordered spicy.
Tomorrow I go to Nagoya, rain is forecast.
Shibuya station area is STILL a construction site. A 20 year project.
Approaching the crossing and it is all very stage managed in a way that ensures there really is no crossing experience.
Hachiko (small dog statue) was boarded up last year too. So now we all take a photo of the sign advising that you cannot see Hachiko. Next year - a sign advising that the sign advising that Hachiko is boarded up.
The crossing, you can only cross in certain directions as some of the start and end points are closed off.
Not nearly as many people as previous years, note the signs on the light poles.
This was new this year, stay in your lane or else!
You had to follow the planned course and not stop. Note that no one at all is wearing a costume.
Time to go elsewhere.
In previous years this street has been full, now empty.
And here it is, my spicy Thai drunk chicken noodles. It looks quite a bit different to the order on your phone menu picture, but it was pretty good.