Tuesday, July 15th: Harajuku & The Meiji Shrine

Jet Lag has finally caught up with me and I felt so wonky that I spent most of the morning in bed, reading. But I got up in time to have lunch with Stefan and got to meet Connor as well. Connor is on a 2-3 year expat assignment from Wellington but his wife and children have not arrived yet. He accompanied us to Lawsons, a convenience store where we got our lunch.

The convenience stores here are nothing like the ones at home in that they all have delicious prepared foods, like rice balls and sushi. I've been having rice cakes or rice balls for lunch mostly every day so far. The rice here is so much better- soft and fluffy and flavorful. Some of them have something hidden inside, like a sour plum. Connor introduced us to two new items, a fried tofu wrapped sweet rice roll (more like a dessert!) and the fried chicken balls that come in all different flavors, such as black (pepper), cheese and red (no clue what that one will be- red pepper maybe).

Connor is very nice and invited us to have dinner at his apartment next week. He claims it will be "rugged". I highly doubt it! Nothing in Tokyo is rugged, as far as I can tell!



Stefan and I ate lunch in a park near his office and on the way, we crossed a river and there were lots of little turtles sunning themselves on the protruding rocks. We'd never seen so many turtles in once place!

Then, it was off to Harajuku for me! At first, when I came up from the metro station in Omotesando, I was quite disappointed- was all of Tokyo going to be huge designer stores, one after the other? But Omotesando did have more to offer- a tree lined avenue and some off the beaten path stores like Laforet (a department store dedicated to Tokyo's trendy teens), Oriental Bazaar (for well priced Japanese souvenirs) and Kiddyland (by far my favorite thus far).

Laforet had tons of designers and brands I had never heard of (Milkfed and Child Woman) and each designer had their own distinct boutique within the store. And every boutique had their own music playing, which made for a confusing blare of a few different songs all at once when you walked through.

Kiddyland was a riot. I've never seen so many funny little toys! Things such as little boxes about the size of mini-cereal boxes full of tiny, tiny plastic toys (pandas- a dozen or so in the box- or miniature plastic food, plastic food being a big thing in Japan and on display in front of many restaurants). One box was called "Hello, Hawaii!" and had a hula girl, palm trees, and a tiny Louis Vuitton bag (?!?). There were hundreds of cell phone charms (and hundreds of those were various Hello Kitties). Everything was SO SMALL. I really enjoyed it and look forward to going back but fear I'll have no restraint. I already want the funny anime key covers and a plastic folder with little cartoon pandas all over it.

I also visited the Meijii Shrine with its huge Torii Gates. The people in the picture should give you and idea of the scale.



I was awed by their size. I thought the walk through the park may bore me, but it was so beautiful, peaceful and shaded that I surprised myself by enjoying that most of all.



I did see a few Harajuku girls, but I didn't take pictures. It was so fun to see a few in person, but there were not that many to see. I think I will have to come back on the weekend to really get a good look- and maybe see some "cosplay" kids as well (who dress up in elaborate costumes and do hope to have their picture taken)!

Lastly, as I walked up over the bridge over the traffic near Meiji-Jingumae Station, I got a great view of the Olympic Stadium .