Golden Gai: Part I

Last Sunday at around 4 in the afternoon, Tony and I went to Golden Gai to take some pictures. At first we got lost, ending up wandering around Kabuki-cho, so we stopped at a Lawson Station to ask for directions. The guy we initially asked had apparently never heard of Golden Gai, so he gathered 3 or so of his colleagues, and one of them produced a really hardcore map of Eastern Shinjuku. It turned out we were only 2 blocks or so away, so it was pretty surprising that none of the workers were familiar with Golden Gai; I felt like we were looking for an esoteric, mythical place.

This seemingly esoteric nature was elucidated when we reached the location, which is surrounded by run-down and fairly innocuous residences. Golden Gai certainly does not seek to widely advertise itself: as I had read in Donald Richie's Tokyo and other sources, there were indeed several signs saying not to take pictures or videos (we of course took photos anyway). The place was almost like a ghost town; we did encounter a foreign couple wandering around and a Japanese man also stealthily taking pictures. This gave the overall impression of the town being a sort of hidden treasure known only to a select few (though, I've seen it mentioned in several guidebooks, so it's certainly gotten it's share of publicity over the years).

Anyhow, the "no photo" photos are not loading in this post, perhaps because of some karmic retribution, so here is the url for them:
Sign 1
Sign 2

And here are a few of the pictures we snapped: