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The southern and western districts of Tokyo are where you should head if you're looking for the younger, hipper side of the city. The mini-city of Shinjuku , with its skyscrapers, department stores and red-light district, buzzes with life, and includes one of the city's most beautiful parks, Shinjuku Gyoen . South of Shinjuku are the ritzy residential, shopping and entertainment districts of Aoyama and Harajuku , a collective showcase of contemporary Tokyo fashion and style. Consumer culture is not the only thing on offer; the verdant grounds of the city's most venerable shrine, Meiji-jingu , stretch from Aoyama to Harajuku. Yoyogi-koen , also in Harajuku, was the focus of the 1964 Olympics and several of the stadia surrounding it are a legacy of that event, as is the cosmopolitan atmosphere that pervades the designer shops and cafes along the super-chic Omotesando , a tree-lined boulevard often referred to as Tokyo's Champs Elysees. The transport hub of Shibuya , further south, is another youth-orientated commercial enclave, with a handful of museums worth breaking away from the trendsetting shops and restaurants for. Further south, Ebisu and Daikenyama are also fertile hunting grounds for dining and drinking pleasures. Ebisu is also home to the excellent Tokyo Metropolitan Photography Museum , while neighbouring Meguro has a couple of interesting museums as well as the tranquil National Park for Nature Study and Happoen traditional garden and teahouse. It's a short walk east from here to the temple Sengaku-ji , a key location in one of city's bloodiest true-life samurai sagas, and the Tokyo Bayside transport and hotel hub of Shinagawa , one of the original checkpoints for entry to the old capital of Edo.
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