Shibuya Scramble Crossing

You are looking at the scramble crossing outside Shibuya Station's Hachiko exit, from street level — close enough to read the mood of the crowd. When the lights turn red, they all turn red at once: traffic stops in every direction, the corners fill up, and then as many as three thousand people surge across at the same time, weaving through each other under some of the brightest video billboards in Asia. It happens roughly every two minutes, all day, every day — by most estimates, around half a million people cross here every 24 hours.

The crossing has moods. On rainy days it becomes the famous umbrella ballet, a favorite of photographers. Friday and Saturday nights bring the biggest, loudest crowds, and the neon reflections on wet asphalt after a shower are the shot every visitor tries to take. Around Halloween and New Year's Eve the intersection turns into one of the largest street gatherings in Japan.

Shibuya runs on Japan Standard Time — check the local clock above. The heaviest waves roll through on weekday evenings between five and eight, when commuters pour out of one of the world's busiest railway stations. And if you catch it between three and five in the morning Tokyo time, you will see something rarer: the world's busiest crossing, almost perfectly still.