story ended happily after finding a hotspot and sending an email, but this visualization makes that instruction seem even more hilarious in hindsight
a pin pointing out a location using this map would be a perfect waypoint!
As it happens, I will be going to Shinjuku later today for the first time in four years to meet an old friend for lunch. I spent some time online yesterday looking at photos and streetview of the area. My friend has been living in the Tokyo area as long as I have and used to go to Shinjuku a lot, too. But he doesn't use a smartphone and we're meeting on the south side of the station, which has changed a lot. So I prepared a four-page PDF with maps and pictures showing where we will meet, and I told my friend to print it out and bring it along. I hope we're able to find each other.
Later, I walked through Shinjuku and Kabukicho up to Shin Okubo to see how the city had changed. It was good to see that the Shin Okubo area is still as multiethnic and ungentrified as it was twenty years ago. A couple of backstreet one-person coffee shops I used to frequent were still there, though closed for the New Year's holiday.
If you're getting directions via google maps and you have to exit a subway station in Tokyo (and maybe some other cities), it will give you directions underground to the proper exit. It will even tell you which subway car you should be on so you will be closest to the proper exit.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Shinjuku+Station/@35.69166...
obvious to someone who goes there every day yes, but not to a jet-lagged traveler visiting for the first time :)
i enjoyed being in the first cohort of airbnb guests, quirks and all; felt more 'personable'
but yea I also remember that being probably the last year I felt comfortable traveling somewhere without a mobile device constantly connected
Then the fun started since I couldn't spot the hotel a kind Japanese couple decided to help. Their "crippling helpfulness" became clear only after 5 minutes that they were tourists and had no idea where the hotel was, but it took even longer for me to extract myself politely by pointing towards a taxi stand saying I knew where it was. I got in a taxi and gave him the address... he looked at me like I was crazy, drove forward 1.5 blocks and pointed to the hotel sign. Best Y300 ever spent.
A famous and much easier one in Tokyo is to meet at the dog [1]. Now, granted, it's in Shibuya and not in Shinjuku.
Darn do I miss Tokyo...
I firmly believe that the only people who can truly navigate Shinjuku station, are people who work there and people who live there. Seems like no matter what, Google maps/Yahoo will tell you exit via b14 and every exit sign will helpfully guide you to North East, East, and all the exits a1 through a10.
It's always easier to exit the station and then figure out your final destination, which can still be annoyingly hard.
It never makes sense. If it's a landmark or sizeable train/bus station there must be a cafe or a park with notable features nearby. If it's in the middle of nowhere there will be a bench at an easy to describe place.
Telling people to stand in wide and potentially crowded areas for a significant amount of time if they dare coming early is just cruel.
PS: for people using Hachiko as a meeting place, there's a Starbucks right the other side of the crosswalk dammit.
Hachiko is a small enough area that’s pretty much proven to work and is a location that any confused tourist can get pointed to easily enough - and signs inside Shibuya station will literally label it.