Night walk in Nakano and Don Quijote at 2am

Don Quijote is infamous for being a crammed shop that sells almost anything. Need a new bike, 2kg rice, sex toys, the latest Arashi CD and a bunny costume? No problem, it’s all available at Don Quijote. Besides being infamous, the store is famous for having long opening hours. So I thought why not drop by at 2am?

The Don Quijote near Nakano Station is open until 5am. So if you wake up at 4 thinking “I don’t have any clean underwear!” – no problem, just go to Don Quijote. The opening hours are well past the ones of the Nakano Broadway shopping mall which some compare to geek mecca Akihabara because it has a Mandarake store. Mandarake sells all kinds of anime and manga related merchandise.

So let’s start the walk, shall we?

When Construction Workers Wake Up

It’s perfectly safe to take a nice stroll at 3 in the morning in Tokyo – for the most part anyway, since I’m pretty sure that one could find some horror stories about what happens at night in Japan, such as “50 year old man forced by dog to wear sailor fuku”. Still, I never had any problems at night. The convenience store plays a role in Japan’s safety – if you are chased by a pervert dog, you can still flee into the next 7/11 or Lawsons and smack him over the head with one of those heavy manga magazines.

There’s a whole industry that lives off people who are still around at night, stranded or not. Donkihot is open until 5am, some movie theatres have late-night showings and then there is karaoke, arcades and more. Of course, taxi drivers too benefit from people not being able to go home. It’s different in Hamburg for example, where the subway runs 24h on weekends and there is a network of night buses covering most parts of the city.

But when you take a walk outside, you will not only see drunken business men. You will also see construction workers. Why?

Vegetarian restaurant Govinda’s in Nakano

Nakano Station is only five minutes away from Shinjuku via the Chuo Rapid Line. The area around the station is popular with manga and anime fans (Mandarake) and shutterbugs (Fujiya). Some vegetarians come here because of Govinda’s, an Indian-style vegetarian restaurant. Govinda’s is not part of Nakano Broadway or the Sun Mall and some people complain that it is hard to find.

Cafe Karma

Actually it isn’t particularly hard to find and not that far away from the station either. After you arrive at Nakano Station, take the north exit for Nakano Broadway/Sun Mall. You will see a bus stop and the mall in front of you and a painted wall on your right. Turn right and walk until you see Cafe Karma (which is a nice place too, by the way). Turn left into the small side street. You will pass a restaurant and the LIFE super market.

This area is full of small restaurants, record shops and shops which cater to otakus. After about 100 meters, you will see this building on your right:

Night full of snow in Nakano

There is very few snow here in Tokyo, so naturally I take many photos whenever it snows. At 11pm there was snow-rain outside and I decided to just walk from my apartment to the next convenience store. Combined with the right music, it can look scary in motion. On the black/white photos I took with my Harinezumi, the snow/rain looks like strokes.

The next day, there was mostly mud on the streets but at nearby Heiwanomori Park it looked like real snow!