Bunkamura
Bunkamura-dori. A complex featuring an excellent art museum, in addition to theaters for film and stage plays. On the basement floor there's an art and design bookstore as well as a branch of Paris' famous Les Deux Magots café.
HachikÅ
A diminutive statue of a dog tucked away in one corner of the big plaza outside the station, best known as a meeting place and for the story see box. It is also the name of one of the many exits from Shibuya Station and the prime meeting place before a night out. Just hanging out near Hachiko for a while will give you some great people-watching opportunities.
Center Gai
The narrow street leading away from the station to the left of the giant video screen, it's famous as the birthplace of many of Japan's youth fashion trends. Center Gai is jam-packed with clothing stores, music stores, and video game arcades. This is a great place to stroll and feel the Shibuya vibe.
A symbol of loyalty
HachikÅ, an Akita dog, was born in 1923 and sold to a well to do family in Tokyo while still a puppy. The father of this family, Eisaburo Ueno, a Tokyo University professor in his 50's, loved Hachiko very much and doted on him constantly, taking him for long walks, always brushing him, and even taking baths with him inside the home. He treated him truly as one of the family.
Up until Hachiko was two years old, he always walked to the station with the father and afterthe father went through the stalls he would go home by himself. But, then he would returnevery day to wait outside the stalls to meet the father coming home. All the locals and trainstation people knew this man and this dog had a special bond.
One day however, the father died while he was teaching at the university. Hachiko went to pickhim up but he never came. And, Hachiko never stopped waiting. Every day for about 10 or 11years he went and waited. The story was picked up and popularized by Japanese newspapers, and Hachiko became a minor celebrity while he still lived, attending the inauguration of his own statue in 1934. He passed away the next year, but his story lives on — and you can still pay him a visit in the collections of the National Science Museum in Ueno.
Museums
Tobacco and Salt Museum
This peculiar institution owes its existence to Japan's peculiar government monopoly on these two substances. The website advises that "dangerous substances are not permitted within the museum".
Shibuya has a small collection of famously offbeat museums.
TEPCO Electric Energy Museum
A giant multi-story propaganda exercise courtesy of the Tokyo Electric Power Company TEPCO, primarily devoted to extolling the virtues of nuclear energy. Well done if often more than slightly cheesy exhibits, many of them hands-on, and a great place for kids. Since the nuclear disaster in Fukushima on March 11, 2011 that TEPCO has been incapable of getting under control, the museum has been closed. No date has been given for when or if they may reopen it.