Exploring Tokyo at Night - Before it All Changes

[Music] it is just before midnight right now and i am out in ikebukuro exploring back streets and rooftops my buddy lucas hey guys what do you think of this spot it's pretty good yeah i like i like how you got in here you you asked that was impressive sometimes all you gotta do is ask [Music] bali just loved the likes of ikebukuro oh yeah ikebukuro was like one of my first loves ever in tokyo it was probably like the very first tokyo area that i ever truly felt you live here i do live here i've lived here for almost 10 years now but the first time i came here also like i didn't really know what even it was so my friends were like japanese friends you know like when i was you that's you just go want to go to shibuya all the time right i'm looking at this beautiful alleyway with sunshine there and then i look over at lucas there's there's this giant demon behind him that looks like it's about to devour his head so that's the thing you literally step back as you're like but i love the way this just cuts through right here to sunshine city up there this building sunshine city up here actually has one of the best viewpoints of tokyo [Music] pretty much every single time that lucas and i get together it's just it's just rooftops yeah it's like a tradition it just feels so good to be back out into i've been doing so much stuff in the countryside and out in nature that it's been a long time since i've had the opportunity to get into the city again you know yeah and it's the best time for it it's night time yeah yeah we were gonna do it on a rainy night but my camera isn't the biggest fan of the rain so this all have to do yeah it's still pretty good though i think i think i can get a view of the highway over there let's try [Music] i am already losing track of how many stairs we've done today that's the key to this man you gotta you gotta find the stairs and climb them tell me the story of this rooftop lucas well this is one of the oldest ones that i've ever been to in ikebukuro so when i started doing rooftops in like 2014 i came to this one this was one of the ones i found because i because i did it started in my neighborhood here in ikebukuro and this was one of those and so it's like there's nothing like there's no like fancy story but it's just got a special place in my heart i guess what i want to say because it's one of the first when i figured out but there's some cool views so let's check those out cool the ducks here and then we got sunshine back there which is kind of the star of the show tonight we've shot sunshine from like five different views you know how you got the what's the guy's name the the 35 views of mount fuji or whatever yeah yeah we got like the 10 views of sunshine city this view is really good right here lucas has a special love for pipes and ducks oh yeah big time and we actually had to climb something like 12 flights of stairs just to get up here this time not not too bad but it all adds up at the end of the day too you get some cardio in right why not so you got tokyo tower out there and i have a special little love for all the air conditioner units on top they're they're messy but they're beautiful in a weird way [Music] i'm just i love the colors of tokyo at night and lucas makes a really good point of it with over time everything's changing everything's disappearing and look at this look at this view i love this okay back on topic is that especially over the past i'd say year two years even decade tokyo has seen so much change so many buildings disappear places that we've known and loved since coming to japan are just forever gone and so we don't know how long spots like these rooftops that we've collected over the years are gonna be around so we've kind of committed to hitting as many of them tonight and over the near future as possible one of the big tricks i'm gonna we're gonna actually head back down one of the really good tricks that i actually picked up from lucas i'd say the better part of a decade ago is when you're shooting night photography you're going for you're trying to pick up light your camera is essentially always just there to grab light and so if you have an area like this that's really lit up and beautiful in the background you're likely to get really good photos but if it's just a dark alley maybe a long exposure will yield some nice results but chances are you're not going to get a great photo so just i say it every time and i'll continue to say it just chase the light i'm leaving most of tonight up to lucas because he's kind of the ikebukuro expert if you will so all the pressure's on you lucas yeah no pressure it's so chill one of the things i've always loved about tokyo and japan in general is just like if that's the shape of the land they have to work with that is the shape that the building will be and you can bet that there's gonna be some really strangely shaped building squeezed into there as well as well as just this one parking space for this single truck that's all that'll fit and that's all they need it's actually not even that laid out i'd say maybe one 1 30 at the absolute best but it's crazy how the city just just empties out at night every time i do one of these like nighttime in tokyo videos people are surprised at how empty it gets like obviously the main road there's going to be cars and people driving around but you get one two roads into the back street and it's just [Music] lucas has always for years for as long as i've known him has always found the most obscure just spots or moments or points in tokyo in fact i've known lucas here for well over a decade and i'd say at least half of that relationship has just been running into him on random street corners throughout tokyo but talking about obscurity lucas check this out it's an entire minute i love how it's like do not drink this is a soup stock [Laughter] i've never seen this mission but there are more and more weird vending machines like this you know like there's like a blue bottle coffee vending machine yeah yeah that i saw yeah omotesando on cat street there's this fancy soda like craft cola craft coal is actually getting kind of big in japan right now mostly in the countryside out in shikoku i didn't know that you can buy syrup and you put a little bit of syrup and then some soda water and you make your own basically craft cola i don't know how to describe it if cola if there was like a pumpkin spice latte version of cola that would be it it's got the cinnamon and the nutmeg and all those other flavors in it so it's a good analogy i think but i haven't had it it just sounds like the appropriate analogy you know what let's let's take a peek and i mean they've got like a a makeshift version in konbini's let me grab them for you there we go there we go okay there you go that's for you nice thank you so i've seen this but it compared to the fancy ones that are like five bucks a pop yeah yeah yeah i was like yeah but let's try it i'm gonna like not sponsor it just tastes like cinnamon cola yeah i mean just it's good it's good it tastes like cinnamon cola you know what i'm breaking the rules i'm trying the elevator i suggest that actually because i'm tired of taking this the risk is if it opens up right into a shop so and then we we pretend like we didn't park our car here yeah is this is this where we parked yeah no this isn't it here we go moment of truth stairs and whatever it is [Music] outside of ikebukuro do you have a favorite area for rooftop views easily ginza that's the place which is where we went the last time we did this yeah yeah and that's why we went there because it's awesome is great i kind of want to get down near the train track so yeah let's do it i got a good spot for that we uh we left the door open just in case it oh my god just in case it locks on us [Music] hey dude what's up we uh we've got a bit of a cat friend with us just staying one floor ahead the entire time brave little dude i wouldn't be going on that ledge oh watch your head this almost took my nose lucas is freaking out over the cat saying like what why doesn't he just go under why does he go inside i'm scared for the cat you know i don't want him to hurt himself you know he's chilling there now yeah i hope so i hope he's just chilling but he's like i'm the precipice of death train yeah i realize it's so light i don't even think they're technically like very few are running yeah this one's just getting apart i think i also saw a little shrine there when we came around the corner yeah i thought that this was going to be a bridge over but it's just the there's a bridge under right there's a bridge well a bridge under is called a tunnel there's a bridge and there is a tunnel there's a bridge under there's a bridge under it let's just go with that there's a bridge under over there and then there's a get this get this there's a tunnel over on the other i'm leaving i'm done with this [Music] honestly the city has no shortage of little stairwells that you can get access to to take photos and whatnot but also this has gotta be my favorite part of tokyo that doesn't matter where you go you're gonna come across some type of little shrine hidden within the back streets you know i did this entire walk through osaka and there weren't nearly as many shrines and temples hidden in the back streets of osaka as there are in tokyo many times and now that you mention it that is a very good observation there's not that many not like here there's always something here well cherry blossom trees not maybe this one right here but the ones back there that we passed the shrine so it's a good cherry blossom spot it's pretty good yeah you see a lot of people doing hanami it's not huge okay but it's nice and you can get really close to the trees watch your shins yeah i figured the overhead tunnel will give us better views than the underground bridge because when you're underground even though you're on a bridge you don't see anything because you're underground i'm never going to live this down am i like this technically there are underground bridges let it go but you know this is this is going to be a bit of a of a digression but in poland there's a salt mine that you can visit it's like a you know a historical place it's 1200 years old and when you go underground in the salt mine there are bridges because you have to be not making me feel any better well you know but it's not unheard of is what i'm saying another thing that i love around here is that pink neon sign for hoteru the world hotel but you know neon signs are going away that's another thing that's going away yeah yeah a lot of cool neon signs have been removed and shinjuku there's a few that are gone and this one is awesome i love it great colors [Music] we got caught up right here just watching the trains for far longer than i'm willing to admit some stairways will be a little messier than others as you go up and some will apparently have plants it's actually my first time to see plants i'm gonna go a little bit higher come on view doesn't change too much but maybe a lot more i feel like a chicken coop up there this is weird got a blank rooftop up here a couple buildings over here the best spot is definitely down over there over the staircase we just came up and you've got a dead neon sign here with a clown for karaoke yeah i love that thing but it's been there forever and i've never seen it on but the best spot on this rooftop and sorry if you have vertigo is right here i've never been up on this one though i would not have found it if you didn't bring me up here so thank you and i also don't know how we got this far in the video without me mentioning that lucas now actually has his own youtube channel that's right yeah photography i'm gonna link it i'll link it below i'll link it at the end i'll just i'll link it you know we have like an entire playlist of videos together now yeah i know this is like i don't know i lost track account but we've had we have a bunch we have we uh we need to do this more often yeah we do [Music] you

Channel: Tokyo Lens

Views: 171,176

Keywords: Japan, Tokyo, Vlog, Tokyo Lens, Tokyo Vlog, Japan Vlog, Norm Nakamura, Norm Tokyo Lens, Japanese, living in japan, Tokyo at night, Tokyo night, exploring tokyo, explore japan, exploring japan, tokyo japan, tokyo night view, tokyo night walk, tokyo nights, tokyo at night, 4k, tokyo 4k, japan 4k, ikebukuro, ikebukuro night

Id: 4z7-yFXXKL0

Length: 16min 54sec (1014 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 19 2021