Highlights of Shibuya PARCO and Tokyu Plaza Shibuya

We are seeing new malls reopening recently in Shibuya. After the opening of Shibuya Scramble Square, there are 2 new places to hang out in Shibuya. Not to forget there is Shibuya Hikarie and Shibuya Stream which are also the relatively newer malls.

Shibuya PARCO

Shibuya PARCO has closed some 3 years ago and unveiled for this grand reopening on 22 November 2019. It’s meant for the younger crowd who are into music, art, fashion and pop culture. Each floor is decorated with its own theme.

Ground floor of Shibuya PARCO

We went on a rainy weekday so we couldn’t make it out to the rooftop but there is still an indoor area where you can enjoy some view of the buildings in Shibuya.

The view of Shibuya from one of the top floors

Games and Anime galore

While all the floors featuring concept and products for the youth, I thought the 6th floor is probably the one that will attract most visitors, especially foreigners, with their anime-related characters and products.

Street Fighter from Capcom store
Dragonball from JUMP store
Life-size Mewtwo from Pokemon Centre

There was even a line to enter Nintendo Store. Hopefully, after a few weeks, we can just enter the store without queuing to see some Super Mario related products, etc.

Nintendo Store
A Starbucks cafe is here too!

Other floors will also feature product collaboration with retro characters, offering shoppers with a time-travelling experience.

Life-sized Astro boys to welcome you at the storefront
Nostalgic PAC-MAN game that you can play for real!

Chaos Kitchen

In case you are thinking where to have some food and drinks, there’s a whole floor at B1 where they called it the “Chaos Kitchen” and feature many different restaurants and bars. There is an interesting “bug restaurant” called “Rice and Circus” where you can enjoy different bugs only for the brave ones! 😛

Tokyu Plaza Shibuya

Also renamed as Shibuya Fukuras, this is the latest shopping complex reopened on 5 December 2019, with the concept to target the older crowd. We went to brave the crowd on the day of reopening, and surprisingly still manageable if we avoid the areas with a line.

A very compact building sitting on the west exit of Shibuya station

There are other malls for Tokyu Plaza with one sitting in Harajuku/Omotensado and another in Ginza. I notice they all have a similar building design with long escalators at their entrance.

The iconic escalator entrance of Tokyu Plaza
Spotting the older Tokyu building on the other side.
All 18 floors of office, restaurant and shopping space
In the main atrium on the second floor

Famous icon of Shibuya

On the second floor, you will see some shops like Beams Japan and Akomeya Tokyo to give the first impression of Japanese culture and products. At the same time, you can see a digital version of the famous Shibuya icon, Hachiko.

Featuring a digital Hachiko

Pepper Palour

We went there with a purpose to experience being served by robots in this premium cafe called Pepper Palour located on the 5th floor.

Reception at Pepper Palour

Be amazed by the futuristic but natural green interior design of this cafe. I appreciate the way they design this cafe to balance out the modern/futuristic concept of a robot cafe but covered in dry moss green lighting. It makes the whole experience very comfortable.

Other robots in the centre stage will dance at specific times of the day

How to order

Basically, while this is a robot cafe, there are still human beings around to assist you (obviously!). At the entrance of the cafe, there was staff to help us find seats and showing us to the seats first before we proceed to order at the reception.

Once the order is taken, there will be a receipt given which you can then pass to another counter with human beings to prepare your drinks and food. You will receive a digital plate where the staff will bring the drinks / food to your table later.

A normal cafe latte will cost around 650 JPY.

Note that only those who can pay with credit cards can order with Pepper-kun at the reception. If you can only pay with cash, there is another counter with human beings to take your order.

There was an old lady seated next to us for a while with nothing arriving at her table, so one of the staff came over to check on her order. It turns out that she didn’t order anything and thought that the staff will come to her table with a menu and take her order as per what normal cafes will do. The staff patiently explained to her again on the entire process and directed her to the counter with human beings for her order. I then realise this system may be a little confusing without clear or repeated instructions especially if this shopping complex is targeted at older consumers.

Cute Pepper-kun souvenirs

Cute Pepper-kun related T-shirts
Fire mugs with Sakujima-shaped teabags

“End of Life” Salon

In case anyone is not aware, there’s an increasing marketed trend called “shuukatsu (終活)”. It basically just means “end of life preparation”.

In Japan, there are a lot of “activities” that people will do at different stages of their life, with “job hunting aka shuukatsu (就活)”, “marriage hunting aka konkatsu (婚活)”, pregnancy attempt aka ninkatsu (妊活), etc.

Be blown away when they start to open up salons for the elders and their families to walk in and discuss about the wills, funerals, etc. Something real but uniquely Japanese for now.

“End of life” salon

And they also adeptly place a Namboya shop besides this salon, which is basically a store to buy and sell 2nd hand luxury items, with specific aim for people who are looking to sell away items left behind by their loved ones.

Visit and experience the New Shibuya!

So next time you are in town, you can allocate a day in Shibuya to visit all these new shopping malls. Do leave a lot of space in your luggage for all the shopping items too. 😀

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