Tokyo / Shinjuku / Shrine

Hanazono Shrine

花園神社 はなぞのじんじゃ

Kabukicho's own shrine — vermilion among the neon, a Sunday antiques market, and November's Tori-no-Ichi fair of lucky rakes.

For a second visitHistory · Free · Late night · Seasonal · Photogenic

The shrine has protected the entertainment district since before it was one — it was here when Shinjuku was a post-town on the Koshu highway — and it is where bar owners pray on the way to work and theatre troupes give their first performance of the year. Vermilion buildings, a small Inari shrine with a tunnel of torii, and on Sundays an antiques market under the trees. In November, on the "days of the rooster", the Tori-no-Ichi fair fills the grounds with stalls selling kumade, the decorated bamboo rakes that businesses buy to rake in the coming year's luck, each sale sealed with rhythmic clapping.

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A hand-drawn sketch for orientation — each place links to an exact map.
Tip
Enter from the Golden Gai side after your last bar; the shrine grounds are open all night.
Best time
Late night from Golden Gai; November for the fair.
Allow
20 min
Station
Shinjuku-sanchome (Marunouchi / Fukutoshin / Shinjuku lines), exit E2, 1 minute
Official site — hours, prices, closures
www.hanazono-jinja.or.jp · Map

Appears in

In this area: Shinjuku

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Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden新宿御苑

An imperial garden of English lawns, French avenues and a Japanese pond — the finest cherry blossom and autumn colour in Tokyo.

120 min · Shinjuku-gyoemmae (Marunouchi line), 5 minutes; Shinjuku, 10 minutes
Viewpoint Essential

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District Essential

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Six alleys, two hundred bars, eight seats each — the writers' and film-makers' drinking quarter that outlived every redevelopment.

120 min · Shinjuku-sanchome (Marunouchi / Fukutoshin / Shinjuku lines), exit E1, 5 minutes

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