Takeshita Street

What the guides say about Takeshita Street

Leave the shrine and you're in Harajuku straight away. Takeshita Street is 400 metres of crepe stands, pastel shopfronts and teenagers dressed with more commitment than most adults manage, and it takes one pass, no more. Cut through Cat Street, the back lane of small labels and coffee windows that runs between Harajuku and Shibuya, and detour to Omotesando for the flagship architecture, one glass facade after another by the country's best-known architects. Lunch is Harajuku Gyoza Lou, pan-fried dumplings, a beer and a bill that barely reaches four figures.

Late morning in Harajuku and Omotesando. Leave the shrine and you're at the top of Harajuku. Takeshita Street is teenage Tokyo squeezed into 400 metres, crepe stands and pastel shopfronts and sensory overload. One walk-through is enough. Then cut across to Omotesando, the tree-lined avenue where the same city does luxury instead, flagship architecture by Japan's best-known architects, one building after another. The backstreets between the two, Cat Street especially, are where the good shopping hides.

20. Harajuku Takeshita Street on a Sunday. The weekend pedestrian circus on Takeshita Street deserves one visit for the spectacle. The better move, though, is to leave Harajuku station in the other direction, toward Omotesando, where the architecture is as good as the shops. Herzog & de Meuron's Prada building, Tadao Ando's Omotesando Hills, the zelkova tree avenue. It's the most visually coherent street in Tokyo.