Japan Pictures Day 3: Harjuku

Breakfast again. We switched Calpis flavors,
and it was chocolate pan today.

Day 3: Harajuku!

Friday the 27th of September. Kerri had found a list of a ton of things to look at in Harajuku, and we went through to decide what we really wanted to look for (no bars, etc.). We made a list with their addresses and took it with us.

We took the Yamanote JR line, which is just a loop around main Tokyo, with a train every 3 minutes. We purposely took our time getting out of the hotel, but we were still too early.

The Harajuku station. So cute!

A bunch of people already in line for a shop.

I thought these trees were interesting.
Very Japanese. XD

We found one store on our list pretty quickly, but it was still closed, and looked to be just expensive clothes, so we skipped it.

As we turned down the street to try and find our next location, we saw a cute crepe store. Still closed, but we hung out for a few minutes so we could get some deliciousness.

Cute Crepe store. You can see Kerri on the left behind
the sign.

  Next to the crepe store was a shop with two huge red Kanji outside, that people  (Japanese) kept getting pictures with, so we had to get some too! XD

Kerri and the Kanji

Me with Kanji

Funny store name.

We ended up not finding the store we were looking for, but ended up turning down a really popular street called Takeshita Street accidentally. There were a lot of shops, including multiple crepe stands, McDonalds, a 7-11, clothes stores, cafes, and more.


One of my favorite places was Daiso, a 4 or 5 story 100Y shop! It's the japanese equivalent of a Dollar Store. I had fun looking at all the stuff, and got quite a few things.

 

"Dog" was a Lady Gaga-esque store that
really was just as crazy as her.

Mimicking the mannequin outside "Dog".

Our matching hats.

 While I was puzzling over a map, Kerri went into a store called ACDC Rag. I joined her and we ended up getting matching hats. I also got a black bag with wings and Kerri got a Panda-sweater that she loved.

My winged bag! I love it!

Kerri's Panda sweater. With ears even!
And panda-mitten pockets!

One black wing.

With one black tail.

We also stopped at a store that was SO PINK! Described as "shockingly pink" it almost made my eyes bleed from all the pink and neon colors inside and on the clothes. We mostly went for the experience, but I did get some earrings there. There were 5 of them, two white wings, two black wings and a black tail.

We exited from the main entrance to the street.
The sign says "youkoso" or "welcome".

This map was unusual because it had little
stickers for actual stores on it.

 While in the street, we stopped at the 7-11 to see if someone could help us find some of the places we were looking for, because we couldn't find hardly any of them. Turns out we were in the wrong Chome (cho-may) for the places we kept looking for. No wonder! After leaving the street, we headed for the closest Koban, determined to get another map and not keep wandering around. They didn't have a map we could take, so we had to make due with the maps posted on the main streets (everywhere, mostly).

Eventually, I remembered what I had learned about Japanese addresses. They consist of 3 numbers, 6-4-12, for example, in a town or area. the first number is the Chome. The Chome go in some kind of spiral around the town area, with 1 being near the center, I think. The second number is the block number. In the map to the right, you can see those numbers. The blocks are also numbered in a spiral inside the Chome. Lastly is the final address, which goes around each block. I don't know if there is any reason to what direction, but by then we would just circle the whole block looking for what we wanted. Almost nowhere was an address actually posted, so you relied on maps to tell you where you were more than where you wanted to go, sometimes!

Trippy entrance! So cool!

 On our way to the Koban, we ran into this store, which was on our list for one of the places inside. The entrance was entirely these mirrors with the escalators that went up to the 2nd or 3rd floor right away.

Picture of a shoe ad that I thought was so funny
because it says "the boot that build America"

Real ramen! I got all the toppings!

We found another store on our list across the street from the Koban, where I got a lot of Studio Ghibli souvenirs. Then we looked for a gyoza place on our list, but we had to give up and stopped at a little ramen shop (where we shared some gyoza anyway).

Kerri's ramen, with the normal toppings.

For dessert, some almond pudding-stuff. Like what I have
made for my mom a couple times.

The Godiva building was painted to look
like chocolate bar!

 We went out of our way to go find some shops that Kerri really wanted to see, only to find they were gone, dangit! We did get to pet some cute dogs, though. Their owner was fun, and said that one of the dogs knew she was cute, and so begged for attention.

Takoyaki! Yum!

We headed back to the station, and got some takoyaki on the way. Takoyaki are little balls of batter around little pieces of tako, or octopus. It was really hot and we burned out mouths trying to eat them too soon (Kerri more than I). But finally we got back on the train and went back to our hotel to collapse.

An example of funny drinks in the vending machines!