While staying in Tokyo city, the Shinjuku ward was almost a daily stop for us during our travels. It’s railway station is boasted as being the busiest in all of Japan serving close to two million people daily. From here we made majority of our transfers to other destinations because most the major JR lines come through here on a very regular and timely basis. Our hotel was south of Shinjuku, located in the Hiroo area, so we were able to use the JR Yamanote Line exclusively to make daily stops in Yoyogi, Harajuku, Shibuya, and Ebisu to eat and see other attractions on our commutes back home.
Suggestion: If you plan to spend alot of time shopping or are taking a day trip to Kamakura, I suggest you stay in the Shinjuku ward or anywhere in close proximity to the JR Yamanote line. It made our commutes so much easier when we used this station as our hub.
To be honest with everyone, besides the station itself, I found Shinjuku to be quite dull. Unless you are interested in visiting the Kabukicho (Japan’s largest red light district) or going shopping in the huge malls littered throughout the area, there really isn’t much to see besides skyscrapers and a ton of billboards. If I had been single, Kabukicho probably would have been a very tempting proposition for me, but I was on my “late” honeymoon with my wife, so I opted not to check out the area. haha.
In reality the only real “tourist” spot outside of the red light district which I thought was worthwhile was the Metropolitan Government Office. I can remember coming out of the main exit of the station facing Lumine and actually walking for about thirty minutes before realizing I was actually lost. Being that it was only our second day in Japan, (after Tokyo DisneySea) we figured that we would just “wing” it and find out way around Shinjuku with a simple tourist guide. We were definitely wrong about that! What we should of done was map out our routes the evening before. (we did this for the rest of the trip)
Our original intention of exiting the station was to find the “legendary” Hachiko statue, which we had thought was located around the station itself. We would have searched forever if it had not been for a kind lady who saw us staring at the map pointing at two or three different directions at once. We discovered later that Hachiko was actually in Shibuya and not in Shinjuku. (how embarrassing) Anyway, after our first misstep, we decided to go ahead and visit the Government Office observatories since we were already in the area and on foot.
The walk was actually a good walking distance from the station itself, but once we arrived at the office’s themselves, we thought it was well worth the trip. From the top of the observatories you definitely get a good view of most of Tokyo. Unfortunately for us, it was overcast so we were limited by its obstruction. Despite the clouds, we made the best of our visit and spent time looking at the many landmarks located in each observatory window while at the same time shopping for small items in the Souvenir Shops. If I can recall correctly, the southern observatory had quite a few shops for children filled with toys and small trinkets. The northern side however was much different and had a large bar and sitting area for guests to simply wind down.
On your way down from the observatory decks, you will be instructed to get off on the second floor. Apparently the first floor is only for entrance to the observatories while the second floor serves as an exit. Before leaving the second level, be sure to stop in at the tourist center located near the escalators heading to the first floor. Here we found additional travel guides, tours, and tourist options as well as information for the Enoshima-Kamakura Free Pass (which we used to see the Great Buddha of Kotokuin) for our day trip to Kamakura. The employees were very helpful and even provided each of us a small souvenir bag filled with authentic Japanese tea leaves.
