You Should Avoid Tokyo’s Shinjuku Station Like the Plague (Part II of II)
(Continued from Part I)
I rarely make Shinjuku my final destination because I don’t particularly care for the vibe of the area. But if I must go there and Shinjuku Station pops up on Google Maps as the closest station, I look to see what the second closest station is. Since I’m going to be walking 15 minutes inside the station anyways if I end up at Shinjuku Station, I might as well just go to Shinjuku Sanchome Station or Shinjuku Gyoenmae Station; I may end up walking a little longer once I leave the station, but at least I won’t get lost inside it.
As much as I complain about Shinjuku Station, I don’t have the same complaint about the nearby Shibuya Station, which turns out to be the second busiest station in the world with 2.8 million passengers per day. This is the station I use most often, and the Shibuya district, with vibrancy of youth, fits me quite nicely.
Other than the fact that a train that runs above ground (the Tokyu Toyoko line) arrives five floors underground at Shibuya Station, and a train that runs underground (the Ginza subway line) comes in three floors above ground at Shibuya Station, I don’t think Shibuya Station is intrinsically confusing. Some people insist that Shibuya Station is worse than Shinjuku Station, but I think they’re being unduly harsh to Shibuya Station simply because of a 30 year redevelopment program that’s causing the entire station to be perpetually under construction.
I have objective and subjective evidence to back up the claim that Shibuya Station is infinitely more manageable than Shinjuku Station. For one, there are only four exits in total at Shibuya Station; that’s the same number as the number of exits with the word “South” at Shinjuku Station. More importantly, I, a person with no sense of direction, never get lost at Shibuya Station.
Of course, there’s one way in which Shinjuku Station serves a purpose: as a sightseeing destination in of itself.
You should go there during rush hour on weekdays or daytime on weekends and just hop from one exit to the next.
The sheer chaos of it all is quite an experience to behold.
