Roppongi Rag / 六本木ラーグ: Sunday in Shinjuku 新宿区

On Sundays during the summer, as most Tokyoites takes time to relax and spend time with their family, certain parts of Shinjuku are closed to vehicular traffic. This creates a nice environment, as you exit the East Exit of Shinjuku Station and can roam the streets without worrying about oncoming cars, motorcycles or bikes.

As you exit the East Exit of the station, you'll immediately see a famous meeting spot - Studio Alta (photo below). The site has a massive TV screen monitor several stories high and is a spot that many of Tokyo's residents use to easily meet up with friends outside of a station that sees some 2 million people a day.

While this area has an entirely different vibe and feel at night as Kabuki-cho comes to life, during the day, there are lots of coffee houses, movie theaters, art galleries, record shops, book stores like Kinokuniya, department stores such as Isetan, the nearby Hanazono Shrine and countless cafes to enjoy.

On Sundays, you can often catch some local artists/street performers. I had the good fortune to run into an event on Sunday featuring 2 new acts that were performing to promote their new CDs - one duo was named The Cigarman and their web site is http://hamq.jp/i.cfm?i=sakamoto33 while the other act was a ladies group DSC and their web site is http://shakariki.info/. Both were great and entertaining on a hot sunny day.

Nearby to the stage was a great little cafe - Moa 4 Cafe (photo below). Here you can get a cold drink, coffee, beer, strawberry soda floats (I had one of those and it was delicious) as well as hot dishes in case you're hungry. They have plenty of cafe style tables and chairs directly next to their location, so that you can also enjoy the nearby musicians that I referenced earlier.