Japan day 2

I had a bad night sleep last night. My tummy was upset so didn’t get much sleep. Was feeling a bit poorly in the morning so we travelled slowly but got better as the day went on.

We caught the train to Kamata and had a simple toast breakfast in a cafe. Then we caught the train to Harajuku and walked down Takashita Dori (Street) which is famous for people being a bit ‘different’ in Japan.

I think we were a bit too early to see the really interesting people though as it was still fairly quite. Lots of the shops sold punk/goth clothes, and yet, some of them sold really dress up nice stuff. A real mix.

There was even a pet clothes store so you can dress up your best friend (your dog).

Jodie with Crazy rabbit statue.

We caught the train to Omote Sando and walked around for a while.

Ordinary street photo.

Pet dogs dressed up by their owner (perhaps from clothes from the Harajuku store…)

Then we met Jodie’s Japanese friend Hide for lunch.

Jodie used to tutor him in English when she lived here. His English was really good (much much much better than my Japanese).

After lunch we walked along the shops and went into one called Oriental Bazaar which sold a lot of Japanese souvenir stuff. We also went into a toy store called Kiddy Land which was several floors of kids toys. We continued walking down the street and got back to the Harajuku district.

Near the Harajuku train station there is a huge park with a Shrine in it called Meiji Jingu (Imperial Shrine). We spent some time walking around the park and Shrine.

While we were there we saw a traditional Japanese Wedding taking place.

Afterwards we caught the train to Shibuya. There is an intersection there that is unbelievably busy with people crossing the street. On one of the buildings near the intersection there is a huge TV and as people were crossing the street they displayed a camera view of the intersection. Jodie and I crossed and appeared right in the middle of the TV, we even waved. Those around us must have thought us nuts. We got some drinks in a StarBucks right near the street looking down and watched the people crossing the street.

I started feeling unwell so we decided to head back to the Ryoken again and call it a day.