Shibuya Crossing Viewpoints

The world famous Shibuya Crossing view has appeared in movies like Lost in Translation, and numerous anime.  Often, the giant five story display screen on the Q Front Building shown as a center piece.  It is a tangle of walkways and roads as you move south from the station (away from the Q Front) and look north.  The famous statue of Hachiko the loyal dog is also located here.

HDR Photo of Shibuya Crossing   Flickr / /\ltus

I know I really wanted to check this location out, photo it, and experience the human surge that crosses the intersection with every change of the light.  It is one of the busiest pedestrian intersections on the planet as it is right across from the Shibuya Train Station.

Flickr/Stephan

There are numerous vantage points to observing this busiest of pedestrian crossings.  Most views are from a lower level vantage point, but some higher vantage points.

Flickr/Shibuya246

The easiest vantage point is the street level view looking towards the Q Front Building where the Starbucks Coffee shop is located.  The second vantage point is from the Starbucks coffee shop on the second floor.  You will probably have your coffee drink in your hand right after paying for it as they are fast servers and you can wander upstairs to try and get a window view.  It can be very crowded.  From the Starbucks, you can see huge pedestrian walkway.  From this walkway, you can get pictures of the crossing that look pretty nice.  There is safety glass here, but put your camera to the glass to make the lines go away.  Also some gigantic wall murals here by Taro Okamoto (famous artist who also did a number cool statues around the city).

There are also cool views down on the crossing from the Shibuya Excel Hotel on Shibuya Crossing (19th floor). For some reason the photographers never tell you where they shot this from, but whatever.  Just don't annoy the hotel staff so everyone can continue to shoot from the elevator!

The  latest and greatest view of the crossing is from the rooftop observation deck at Shibuya Scramble Square that looks down on the crossing, but this is a payment required option.