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Can I Afford Japan?

Topic: Free Attractions

Free Things to See in Shinjuku: Godzilla's Head and a Red Torii Tunnel

Shinjuku has two free photo stops worth the detour: the Godzilla head above Kabukicho and a red torii tunnel at Hanazono Shrine. Real details on both.

Written by The ClarksonsAdam, Lindsay, and their three kids

Published on 2 min read

A family of five poses in front of the large Godzilla statue at Kabukicho Tower in Shinjuku, with the parents and three young girls throwing their arms up and making excited faces, the youngest child perched on the dad's shoulders.
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Shinjuku gets treated as a transit hub more than a destination, but two completely free stops within a short walk of the station are worth building a stop around on their own: an 80 ton Godzilla head looming over a hotel rooftop, and a tunnel of red torii gates at a 400 year old shrine two minutes from Kabukicho’s neon.

The Godzilla head, free to see, harder to get close to

The Godzilla head sits on top of Hotel Gracery Shinjuku, in the Toho Building at the heart of Kabukicho, unveiled in 2015 and modeled on the 1992 film version of Godzilla. A few things worth knowing before you go:

  • Street level viewing is free, always, no ticket, no reservation. Look up from Kabukicho below (the block is nicknamed Godzilla Road) and you get the full head against the skyline.
  • The close up terrace experience is currently not open to the public. The hotel used to let anyone ride the lobby elevator up to the 8th floor cafe terrace for a close view, that access has been suspended as of this writing, check current status before planning around it specifically.
  • There’s an hourly animation, roars and smoke effects, running on the hour from noon to 8pm, visible from street level.
A large group of children and adults stand on an outdoor platform looking up at the enormous Godzilla head statue at Kabukicho Tower in Shinjuku against a blue sky.
Godzilla’s head from the public viewing area, no ticket required.
A family of five poses in front of the large Godzilla statue at Kabukicho Tower in Shinjuku, with the parents and three young girls throwing their arms up and making excited faces, the youngest child perched on the dad's shoulders.
The reaction it deserved, Harper on shoulders and everyone screaming into the void.

Hanazono Shrine’s torii tunnel

A five minute walk from the Godzilla head, on the opposite side of Kabukicho, Hanazono Shrine has stood at its current spot since the 16th century, open 24 hours, no admission fee, ever. The part most people come for is a tunnel of consecutive red torii gates near the shrine’s Itoku Inari sub-shrine, the kind of shot that usually means a trip out to Kyoto’s Fushimi Inari, sitting instead in the middle of one of Tokyo’s busiest nightlife districts.

Lily, Cora, and Harper stand in a row with arms raised inside a tunnel of red torii gates at a Shinjuku shrine, all three smiling at the camera.
Lily, Cora, and Harper, inside the torii tunnel, arms up before we’d even finished explaining what it was.

Doing both in one stop

Both are close enough together to hit in the same short walk without needing a plan: Godzilla by day or lit up at night, the torii tunnel whenever the shrine grounds are open, which is essentially always. Neither costs anything, and between the two you get a genuinely strange, genuinely photogenic pocket of Shinjuku that most itineraries skip past on the way to somewhere else.

Keep reading

Three more posts from the same trip.

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