Fairly inexpensive drinking spots are plentiful in Tokyo, but this area under the train tracks is probably about as cheap and cheerful as it’s possible to get.
Under the tracks Tokyo beers and stares
Photography
Slowly crumbling VW camper van
The end of a dream?
Offensive family picnic?
The location of the picnic left a lot to be desired, and some would probably suggest that the language did too.
A window into a different Tokyo world?
Or if not a different world, then definitely a different Tokyo time.
Gritty Shinjuku drinks
With the fairly recent addition of a fancy new hotel and cinema complex, Tokyo’s wonderful grubby Kabukicho red light district has started to see distinct signs of gentrification. So families now mill around on a day out, and tour groups regularly move through en masse, frantically firing off smartphone and tablet photos like their lives depended on it.
But for the time being at least, it still maintains a good amount of rough and ready charm. Drunks, for example, can still be seen passed out on the street. Both male and female. Or even males pretending to be females. Plus the area’s various alleyways remain incredibly dingy, with some of its eateries not all that dissimilar. And as such, weekend afternoons in particular are still as gritty and marvellously impromptu as ever.
