Konnichi Wa Haiku Series, Part 3

Shibuya

Shibuya Crossing, 6 December ’16

Shibuya

Autumn has no bees.

I have measured out my life

with Japanese leaves.

23 October, 2016

Shibuya

Shibuya is one of Tokyo’s most famous neighborhoods. Shinjuku takes the prize thanks to Sophia Coppola’s Lost in Translation as the heart of Tokyo, but Shibuya is the soul. Tokyo’s infinite electromagnetism is bursting here at night, but in the day you can find it in the eyes of the cute baristas at Tokyo’s 2^nd best coffee house, Streamer.

Streamer Coffee Co. is a humble artist’s take on “Seattle-style coffee”, just up the hill from Capital Records. Take Shibuya Station Exit 14b & enter the wardrobe that is Shibuya, then turn R. Streamer is the #2 cafe for Westerners in Tokyo, 2^nd only to Shibuya’s Starbucks lofted 2 floors above Harajuku crossing (below). Streamer is the #1 place for anti-Starbucks hipsters, and far from the LCD-soaked woods (below) and the birch&brick neighborhoods of America’s hipster. I like Streamer’s sublime take on a matcha + white chocolate + espresso + milk at the outrageous price of 7.5 USD. It’s quiet enough, unpretentious enough, that you can sit on the sofa and close your weary foreign eyes, and you’re in Seattle. As far as the haiku: The Japanese leaves are matcha, and the reference from that English poet T.S. Eliot, his coffee spoons of years gone by my trees. It’s also about the impending fall season.

More soon.