Shinjuku

What better way to start your city tour with a life sized "Evangelion"! This life sized statue was displayed in the entrance of a "Pachinko" store. I'm not sure why the Japanese love Pachinko so much but they use popular media icons to advertise their new gambling machines. 

Sunflower themed ice cream. It looks pretty but I really isn't much. 

This ice cream stall was a part of a bigger event. I was somewhere in Shinjuku station and I was completely lost and amongst the chaos and headache I was lucky enough to stop by, very briefly, by this event hall. It really wasn't much but people at the stall were really kind and they left a nice impression. By the way, Shinjuku station can be the most complicated and complex area that I have ever visited in my life. A map does not do any justice in describing the clustered atmosphere. 

Lucky me again, or Shinjuku has events happening everyday. I was traveling on a weekday so it wasn't as crowded as it would usually be, but it was still quite charming to come across this type of event. I was guessing it was some kind of lunch time special because all of the business types were sipping their drinks while candidly listening to the sweet symphony

This is City Hall. 

The iconic "LOVE" sculpture. Me being there is probably ruining it. 

Most of the arial views of the city below are from the City Hall. 

What is this strange contraption? It looks like some sort of Idol representing good fortune but this is only my approximation. It was hanging quite high above on a wall. It may not look it, but this sculptural object was quite large. It was about the size of half of a small car. 

The city has some of the coolest billboards. I would say it is on par with time square of New York, but a lot wider. New York's buildings are still taller by far. 

One of the entrances to Golden Gai, the entertainment district of Shinjuku. It wasn't much in the daytime but I can image at nighttime the place being pretty lit up and raunchy. It was that kind of place so I didn't spend much time here. I guess I should have taken some more photos for reference. 

Some Japanese fine dining. (Not really) The quality of the food was pretty good, and the prices were fair compared to the type of rubbish food choices around. Japan may be known for its food but I realized first hand that the food choices that they have to offer aren't that great. 

A nice beer to wash down my fatigue (?). 

A rice bowl topped with tuna and avocados. This was probably one of the best dishes that I had in Japan and I still think about it when I look at the picture. 

It didn't look much like a restaurant from the outside. 

This place is a mainstream anime store. They sell a bunch of Anime related merchandise ranging from toys, music CD's, DVD's, manga, posters etc. 

I forgot what this place was called. It was one of the many department stores that were erected around the city. 

some kind of ritual or celebration.

I kind of wanted whatever they were wearing, It looked really cool back then.