Shinjuku at Night IV

A slight turn to the right gives a great shot of Tokyo's incredible night time scenery. The silhouette of a man waiting at the huge crosswalk, while a taxi approaches, contrasted with the wall of buildings lit with neon signs. Welcome to Kabukicho.

In my previous experiences in New York and San Francisco, I came to love the ground floor shops that dominate shopping districts. The street-level floor in any building in Manhattan or central San Francisco is prime territory. Unless inside a multi-floor store, often a flagship, stores rarely have their entrances off street-level. Restaurants and bars are also similar.

In Japan, many buildings in red-light districts dedicate their street-level space to an array of elevators used to lift customers to restaurants, bars, and clubs high above the streets. Shinjuku has the tallest all-restarutant/bar/club buildings I have seen anywhere in Japan.

This photograph gives an incredible view of these buildings, sometimes ten or twelve stories high. A single neon sign normally runs the height of the building advertising each business and their floor number.