30 October 2018
The overrated Shinagawa
A boring part of Tokyo that has a really big western hotel
Apart from once transferring to the Shinkansen here years ago, I had never been to Shinagawa. You hear about Shinagawa a lot if you read the internet about what to do in Tokyo because the main white person large sized room hotel is Shinagawa Prince. So lots and lots of people who's main language is English are very with familiar with Shinagawa.
This is immediately apparent when you see the large number of steakhouses, Thai restaurants and Irish pubs, all of them packed.
There is nothing really at all to see at street level, and I walked a full lap of the station, in both directions. Everything is linked by vibrance stifling elevated walkways, so that you never have to descend into the riff-raff, which has eventually killed off everything that doesnt have craft beer on tap.
My top tip is to not bother going to Shinagawa, there are 20 better neighbourhoods to visit.
Pictures tonight are a bit disappointing, just like Shinagawa. Here is the station. It is a massive station and the best eating options are inside the station inside the gate area.
There are a massive number of people coming from somewhere at the end of the working day. There are a lot of tall buildings surrounding the station but its mostly businesses. I think many western businesses have their Japan headquarters here.
This is all the non station shops and eateries I could find.
There is a small river / open drain nearby where I could take a long exposure for some smooth water reflections.
I dont know what this building is but I was hunting for a few more photos so here it is, bonus shot of slightly unusual building.
The main street through Shinagawa, Shinagawa Prince hotel is just to the right. Actually its about 10 towers of hotel, with an imax, golf driving range and waterworld park thing.
I wanted dinner from here, there were 2 places I had selected something to eat from, but there were no seats.
Which inevitably meant I would have ramen, but I did choose vegetarian. However I did not get the vegetarian option I asked for, the one I pointed at was mainly mushrooms, what I got has zero mushrooms. It does have carrot though, good for night vision.