Shibuya Crossing in Tokyo: Where the Karaoke Magic Began

Our second evening in Japan morphed into a magical early sleepless morning at Shibuya Crossing in Tokyo.

Felicia and I were visiting the capital city of Japan - one of the most wondrous and exciting places in the world and an amazing city where I highly recommend you should go) - for a short 3-day visit as a side trip from Taipei, where we were on a historical business-mission vacation for almost one month.

I will save the details of that trip for that Taiwan trip for another blog post.

The first day we flew into Tokyo, we immediately purchased our High Speed Rail tickets from Narita Airport to Ueno Main Station, however we were told it would be better to get off one stop earlier at the Nippori Station.

This would connect us to the Yamanote Line, which was only one line that made up the ever complex labyrinth of only one part of the Tokyo Metro subway system. We would take this line to visit Taiwanese revolutionist Su Beng’s famous noodle shop in Ikebekuro where he wrote his seminal work “400 Years of Taiwanese History” over an 18 year span.

Later that first evening we would see an exhilarating performance at Robot Restaurant in the Shinjuku District, perhaps the most exciting and craziest, multi-colorful spectacle of automatons and humans I have ever seen!  Once the late Anthony Bourdain agreed.

However, let me get straight to the magic that happened during that second evening leading into that sleepless third morning.

The Event That Almost Never Happened

We both planned to visit Shibuya Crossing in Tokyo, which is the birthplace of karaoke.

Here is where we intended to film the first ever episode of our new series “Karaoke Pub Crawl”, but we had no knowledge of the map of the city, only some vague place in our minds (of a karaoke bar without an English name), a hole in the wall that we found we were trying to get to for our final destination.

That second evening around 7:30pm, I was feeling quite sick inside our tiny hotel room. We had just come back from a long walk through the Asakusa Holy District after visiting the top of Tokyo Skytree.  I had a massive headache, and was feeling so queasy I nearly vomited.

After taking a long nap, I woke up at 11:45PM. Thank Goodness, I was feeling better. The Tokyo Metro would soon be closing for the night at exactly 12 Midnight, and Shibuya was about 3.5 kilometers away from our hotel.

One thing about Tokyo, the taxis are incredibly expensive. A short “cab” ride of approximately one-half of a kilometer will cost you 3x what you would pay for the same distance in a city such as New York City. However, if we were to go to Shibuya as we wanted to, we would have to eat the expense – without having a car, it was the only way to get there past midnight.

The taxi ended up costing us around $80 US Dollars, quite a high expense for the short 3.5 kilometer distance. But we arrived at the famous Shibuya Crossing in Tokyo around 1:05 am.

And from here starts our video......

Here we were at the famous Shibuya Crossing in Tokyo – a place where blockbuster movies such as “The Fast and the Furious 7” and where one of my favorite movies “Lost in Translation” were once filmed.

It was now 1:30 am. Only 3 hours earlier, I was told 2500 plus people were navigating this street crossing. Now it was barely a trickle, which was ideal for beginning our filming. So here is where we shot the opening of our introduction scenes of our 1^st ever episode “Karaoke Pub Crawl: Shibuya Crossing in Tokyo” as you have seen it on our You Tube videos.

After filming these introductory scenes, the next 3 ½ hours became a wild goose chase in Tokyo to find an elusive pub “without an English name” we were searching for, the original pub that was the birthplace of karaoke.

So we walked. Then we walked. And we walked even more.

We ended up inadvertently walking southwest over into the next Ebisu neighborhood, where we were told by a traffic officer (or construction clerk, not too sure) that we overshot our mark. We preceded to turn back and continue walking.

It was now 3:30 am, and we were heading back toward Shibuya Crossing (or so we thought), not quite sure where we were going. Strangely, our Google GPS was not working – which is the main reason we got lost while walking in the first place.

While intending to get back, we stopped briefly inside a deserted swanky hotel with a spa so I could use the restroom, but it turned out this stylish place was actually a youth hostel.  There was a lack of security, so I was able to use the facilities that were on the 2^nd Floor, right next to the spa.

This was quite a beautiful place and you were lucky you were youth whose parents could afford this hostel!

Soon we would be walking again in an attempt to reach our first destination which was Shibuya Pasela Station, a popular karaoke place in Tokyo. When we arrive there it was 4:30 am, yet the inside of the place was still bustling!

However, when we went inside and walked up the staircase to the 2^nd floor, the main karaoke room was all but empty.  Fortunately the manager was still there working, and I had a chance to speak with him. This room was near Shibuya Crossing and it had a karaoke stage and instruments, so I could see why it was very popular.

You can see this first stop in my video here on You Tube.

Next we were hell-bent on finding our karaoke Holy Grail – the hole in the wall place that didn’t have an English name. Instead quite unexpectedly (as you will see in our first episode), we bumped into Karaoke Kan, which I would later would find out was the karaoke place where Bill Murray and Scarlett Johannsen’s famous singing karaoke scene took place in “Lost in Translation”.

It was now 5:15 am. I walked inside but was told by the girl behind the desk they only had karaoke private rooms. This is not the favorite type of karaoke setting for “Karaoke Pub Crawl”; even though we sometimes cover these places, we always prefer visiting and featuring communal bar settings, where the patrons can interact.

Felicia and I began walking back to Shibuya Crossing, but instead decided to take a detour through the interesting side streets and alleyways of Tokyo.

To be honest, we were resigned to the fact that we would be giving up on the idea that we would ever find our hole in the wall special karaoke place without an English name - our “Holy Grail.”

Then the Magic Happened

Just when we were all but ready to take a taxi back to our hotel, we made a short right turn into a dubious alleyway, and continued along it for about 32 paces. All of a sudden we turned to look to our left and would see an obscure street sign to our left.

“Voila”! Incredible! It was now 5:30 am, and we found our “Holy Grail.”

There was a dark and rickety red staircase we would have to walk up to get inside our final destination – we still really had no idea what type of crowd (if any) that would be there at 5:35 am in the morning.

Instead when we opened the door at the top of that rickety staircase, it was Amazing!

As we entered the tiny 12' x 15' foot room, there were 2 friendly Japanese bartenders to my left, and the room was packed with a crowd of 15-20 wild patrons partying and singing karaoke!

It was nearly 6:00 am in the morning, and the animated crowd was partying and singing and drinking! This tiny place “without an English name” of a rickety wooden structure was indeed THE birthplace of karaoke – and even in the year 2019 it was truly a Magical place.

Watch the Magic here on You Tube for our 1^st ever episode “Karaoke Pub Crawl: Shibuya Crossing in Tokyo”!

Stay tuned for many new KPC episodes coming soon!

Kindly hit the Subscribe button to our new You Tube channel by clicking the link at “Karaoke Pub Crawl".

Also we give Special AirBnB Tours in New York City of the best karaoke places. This is a wonderful activity for tourists. 

If you are in New York City, click on the image below to Book One of our weekly AirBnB Experience Tours! 

Please share our exciting 1^st episode “Karaoke Pub Crawl: Shibuya Crossing in Tokyo”.

As well as share our other exciting episodes and funny “How to” videos.

Cheers,

Kaju