1343 stations, and the places on their pages. A name, or a code like G-01.
After dark Kawasaki
Neon-arch drinking street Kawasaki Ekimae Nakamise-dori川崎駅前仲見世通商店街
One straight street — just under half a kilometre of it, running east-southeast from the east side of Kawasaki Station out to Route 15 — and its association has specialised in eating and drinking for decades. A neon arch stands over the entrance; the street raised nine of them in 1954 and added two more in 1985, and a Daikoku figure keeps watch partway along. Know the mix before you walk in: hostess clubs, snack bars and girls bars are a trade the street lists as prominently as its izakaya, so choose your own door and don't follow anyone who offers you one.
Italian hill town, 2002 La Cittadellaラ チッタデッラ
An open-air block just east of the station, opened in 2002 to a design by Jon Jerde that imitates a medieval Italian hill town — gently sloping lanes, a central piazza, a fountain at the heart of it. The artifice is the whole point, and it carries far better under lights than in daylight. What keeps the lanes moving after the surrounding shops have shut is the multiplex cinema and CLUB CITTA', a live hall running since 1988 and so older than the complex that now houses it. The lanes are open to walk through; the cinema and the hall are ticketed.
Standing live hall since 1988 Club Citta'クラブチッタ
A 1,300-capacity standing hall that has been running since 1988, set inside the La Cittadella complex east of the station. It is the reason an evening in Kawasaki can have a fixed shape: you come for a door time, and the rest of the night arranges itself around that — the opposite of how most stops on this stretch behave once the commuters have gone home.
Concert hall since 2004 Muza Kawasaki Symphony Hallミューザ川崎シンフォニーホール
Kawasaki's concert hall opened in 2004, and a pedestrian deck carries you to its door from the central-west exit of the JR station. Inside, the seats climb around the stage on all sides in stepped blocks instead of facing it in rows, and Kawasaki has kept the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra in residence here since the building opened. This is a ticketed evening rather than a street to wander, so check what is scheduled before you travel.
City bus, then a 51m tower Kawasaki Marien川崎マリエン
A public observation floor 51 metres up on Higashi-Ogishima, the reclaimed island in the middle of Kawasaki's port: a 360-degree room on the tower's tenth floor looking out over the petrochemical plants, container berths and canal that make up the industrial waterfront, and the night view from it sits on the Japan Night View Heritage register. It stays open past dark, which is the point. Getting there is the catch — read the walking time as the walk to the bus stops at the east exit, because the tower is a city bus ride of roughly half an hour beyond that, and nothing about the trip is a stroll.
Bars and live venues from open map data; adult-entertainment venues are excluded.
Shinjuku’s Omoide Yokochō keeps its own history. Around 1947 the wheat flour for ramen was a controlled good under strict enforcement — offal from the occupation forces was not — so the market stalls switched to motsuyaki. Of about sixty eating places there today, the merchants’ association still counts more than half grilling yakitori or motsu. The menu is rationing law, fossilised.
Omoide Yokocho merchants’ associationNo opening hours here — small bars keep their own, and many close without notice. Check before you set off, and ignore anyone on the street offering to take you somewhere.