Hachiko Square
Tuesday, 26th July 2005 by
This is Hachiko Square, the famous "busy pedestrians" road junction in Tokyo where everyone is waiting patiently to cross the road and then surging over. On Google Maps it is the cross roads with the wide white stripes going around the square and one across the middle. It's been in loads of films but most recently Lost In Translation, where Bill Murray and (the lovely) Scarlett Johanssen wandered around it.
Thanks Francois Jordaan.
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As an additional point of interest, Hachiko Square happens to sit on a satellite photo seam, which makes for an Escheresque experience. If you move slightly West you’ll see the skyscrapers appear to lean towards each other. Very confusing.
The imagery here is a lot crisper on Google Earth. (Tokyo generally looks fantastic. I wish London looked as good.)
Indeed very confusing. Anyway I think they’ve done a great job stiching the photos together, as there seems to be hardly any misalignments anywhere around the square, even though the photos are taken from very different angles.
Seems like more than one seam going on there–very fun! Also two custers of interestingly shaped/colored sports facilities, one just a bit to the northwest and another a little farther to the northeast. Anyone know what they are? Google Earth doesn’t know, and Google Maps speaks only Japanese here.
Hachiko Square is near the unblievably busy Shinjuku Station. This is the busiest train station in the world (I think the numbers are something like 1.2 million pass through it each day).
Hachiko was a dog. a VERY faithful and loyal dog. The square is named after the statue of her placed on the spot where she stood and waited for her master essentially in perpetuity after he died while at work one day. Apparently she waited for him every day after he returned from work and would accompany him home. Touching story of one of the most well known “meet-up” spots in Japan. Such spots are vital, since the whole country is unimaginably crowded, one needs a nice location in which to find someone who looks more or less like everyone else in the crowd 😛
Correction to previous comment. Hachiko is adjacent to Shibuya Station, not Shinjuku… My mistake. But it too is an extremely busy station.
to David D
>one just a bit to the northwest Do you mean this? It’s Yoyogi National Studium, built in 1964 when Tokyo Olympic Games were held.
>another a little farther to the northeast.
This? It’s Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium.
Is Shinjuku really the busiest station in the world ? I heard it was St Lazare in Paris, France. Whatever, it is busy. .. but walking just a bit you come to very calm residential areas. Tokyo is busier than US cities, but far quiter than european cities.