How the Pandemic Has Affected Tokyo

hi guys welcome back and greetings from shinjuku yes we are in shinjuku my my playground this is my playground guys i live literally like 10 minutes away from here by train and as you can see there's a very exciting part of tokyo all right guys so today i thought i'd take you guys around this area because it has changed since the pandemic a lot of things have closed down and a lot of places are closed temporarily so i want to show you guys what's going on here and hope you find this interesting so you see this screen right here so this building used to be a an electronic store like a gigantic electronics store and as you can see i don't know if you can tell but it is empty now they decided to move out of the building and so it is now just a shell i have no idea what they're going to be doing with this particular building okay and then this is a kabukicho that's a patchy compiler that's open um i'll take you guys inside here but let me just show you this new building that's um you're building right now this gigantic skyscraper in the middle of kabukicho that's going to be a hotel as well as shops and restaurants um on the lower floors yeah it's a pretty interesting looking building okay so we're gonna cross the street here and i'll take you guys on a walk through this area so we're in the middle of summer i guess the end of summer but it's a pretty hot day today but not like super hot like when we were in asakusa oh my goodness today it's about 33 degrees celsius when i went to asakusa it was 38 so kind of a big difference yeah okay so let me just get through here as you can see there are people walking around we are going through a state of emergency that has been extended i have no idea when it's going to end but um what i want to do is i want to take you guys into here yeah let's do this okay so this is the street leading into the core of kabukicho and usually this place is happening at night time so not much happening uh during the day but having said that having said that um a lot of these shops as you can see like this one is temporarily closed and they're going to be closed until um the state of emergency has been done with not sure when that's going to be and um uh places that serve food is supposed to close by 8 pm last order 7 however um if you come walking during the night here like you see like this place is closed too but um a lot of the places here um yeah they uh don't follow the the rules and they they do open up but i kind of wanted to show you guys um how things are because a lot of things have closed down you know what if you don't mind we're gonna go this way sorry you see this building right here it's empty the whole building is empty and then we have um like uh that building under construction here because um that's empty this building is completely empty except for my reflection so as you can see it's quite different this matia here they have closed permanently i believe the koko ichiban curry has also closed permanently in this area now this is where godzilla is movie theater is open this is a brand new shop this used to be um like uh it used to be i think they served them takoyaki here but now it's a dim sum place kind of interesting karaoke places are all closed it's been closed since the pandemic started so over a year karaoke boxes have been closed yeah even the the restaurants in this building the ones located outside they're open but the restaurants on the inside they've closed down permanently and um the one restaurant i used to like has been taken over by kfc yeah the restaurants in here are not doing so well anymore yeah this is um a hotel here as as well as the uh the movie theater there's a cinema here called tokyo cinema we haven't been to the movie theater in such a long time and uh there's also a hotel that used to be quite popular with uh the tourists but now we have no tourists so the whole building is not doing so well this restaurant toraja here they serve yakiniku but they've been closed for a while and see all the restaurants in here have closed uh and this right here used to have a nice tomato ramen place but now it's taken over by kfc i guess they do better business and then right here this is the the the plaza area and this is where the new building is being uh constructed at the moment and the arcade that used to be in here have closed down so that's not operating anymore you see all the uh the empty uh blank billboards that means there's no tenants there coffee shop down there has closed yeah so as you can see there are a lot of things that are different here so i'm going to be walking out of this kabicho area because i don't know if you notice but you see people darting in and out of the the camera the video because uh you know this is the red light district the red light district of tokyo and i guess people who come here they don't want to be seen walking around here it's really not that bad though seriously i mean it's not even bad i mean you have to go really really deep into the depths of kabukicho to really see all the all the uh the exciting things yeah i'm not gonna say bad it's not bad i don't judge i don't judge we're gonna take this street to get to the main street of um shinjuku we're going out of kabukicho and if you don't mind i'm going to walk in the shade so i don't overheat so there's a restaurant there and that's been closed for a while because they did izakaya most izakayas serve alcohol so places like that have been closed for a while and then of course that's the karaoke place they've been closed forever they used to this used to be a karaoke box i think but now it's a secondhand shop and then i think koko ichiba oh no yeah and you know what coco ichibanya is still open fortunately they are and also ichiran is open yes so you can still find kokuijiban and you can also find uh ichiran because ichinan is uh pretty popular for locals as well here uh the sushi shop has been closed since the pandemic started yeah and then oh the karaoke karaoke box here big karaoke facility has been closed you see it's been closed it's closed usually karaoke places are open 24 hours a day but they've been closed for a while usually satoshi and i we used to go to the karaoke box like maybe once every three months well we haven't been since the pandemic started it's a little fun and if you go inside here like this is like going into the depths of uh kabukicho going deeper deeper into the exciting stuff okay so we're gonna walk onto the main street we're gonna cross the street and now i will walk down this uh pedestrian lane and i'll show you guys um all the shops that are closed now i'm not making this video to make you depressed or anything i just want to show you uh the reality of what's going on in tokyo right now um since the pandemic has begun all right let's cross the street it's interesting because every time i come out into the city i see more more stores have closed or a new store in place of that store i see that happening in asakusa as well so this is one of the main pedestrian lanes that connects uh j.r shinjuku station which is there in front of us to like kabukicho and further down korea town so you see here this this corner store is closed they've been closed for a while and you kind of just see like a whole bunch of stores closed here and now they have graffiti on the wall i know some of you are surprised by graffiti in japan you don't really see it that much but we do have them this store has been closed because permitting closed these stores have closed in fact the entire building they are empty so they're closed dusters closed stores inside here are closed this entire building is brand new brand new and i i'm not sure if a tenant has been uh determined but yeah it's closed and then there was a fruit shop here and they haven't opened since the pandemic started so over a year this this corner has been closed yeah okay so here we are across from the uh jr shinjuku station once again though as you can see i mean there there's a whole bunch of people out and about it is a friday it is a friday noon time yeah so it's not like like extremely empty it is a lot emptier than usual though right you know i'm gonna cross this street here can i make it uh let's cross let's run across because i want to show you guys something okay here we go check it out have you guys ever heard have you guys seen that you see that cat up there that's a billboard it's a 3d billboard ah it's finished it's finished i hope you guys caught that i hope you guys caught that that's kind of cool but you know that that used to they used to play the cat billboard like until like 10 p.m 11 p.m but now they stop doing that because too many people gather to take photos and videos of that and that's like our new attraction in shinjuku it's pretty brand new okay we're gonna go to the other side of shinjuku through this tunnel they're gonna take a walk through omoide okocho because that place most of the places are have been closed yeah have been closed especially since uh they made a serving alcohol not illegal but they are asking people not to do it and if they do i think the city has permission to find them so despite that there are places that still serve alcohol okay right we are on the other side of the train tracks and we are at omoidyakoto which means memory lane now i'm not gonna go there to film but um okay so this is one lane that has eateries and drinking establishments and already i see people sitting outside drinking beer so that's one of the places that's defying orders and serving alcohol and this is the little street that used to be filled with tourists i used to love coming here because um i enjoyed seeing the tourists have such a good time just walking through this lane anyway let's walk through so it is um lunch time so this place serves uh um what do they serve here ramen so they're open because they don't serve alcohol okay so as you notice look most of these stores are closed like this place is gonna continue to stay closed until state of emergency has finished same here same here same here yeah there was one place that was open so like i said there are some places that uh defy orders and they will open for customers that's you know that's i guess you know they have the freedom to do that i guess so they're closed for a while the thing that worries me is that will they be able to stay closed and keep the business running like in the future i don't know see all these places are closed now this place is open because all they do is serve udon noodles udon and soba so they're open once again all these places because most of them are drinking establishments they will remain closed for the duration of the state of emergency this is ram in place so that's okay but they do have to close by eight though and that was a walk through uh this area [Music] and then we are out kind of where we started and then we have the skyscraper skyscraper district on that side uh we have uh ramy street here now let's cross here shall we that's the prince hotel and below that is where we started this video and can you see the big screen that's where we started i'm gonna run it's red red light okay [Music] whoops i'm so sorry i'm so sorry i was in the way i'm sorry so sorry i don't go out walking much in the city uh especially when there are crowds so i feel like i'm not used to walking in crowds again i keep getting in people's way oh boy okay here we are we are back at where we started that's the pachinko parlor and that is the empty building with the screen yeah guys so anyway i can i can walk all the streets and i can point out all the shops that are closed but it does start to get a little depressing so i'm going to end this video i really hope you enjoyed this walk thank you so much for coming along this walk with me and i'll catch on my next video bye everybody well it looks like there's nothing on this side but i advise you to come down the street for a couple of reasons obviously the answer is food and they have a lot of food shops here

Channel: Shinichi's World

Views: 106,886

Keywords: shinichi, tabieats, shinjuku, tokyo, tokyo japan, tokyo 2021, japan 2021, tokyo walk, city walk tokyo, virtual tokyo

Id: psqFC0hWdEM

Length: 18min 53sec (1133 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 23 2021