A Day in Trendy Japan

Today was an absolutely awesome day. Thursdays are my day off from work. Granted, I could goof off and not do any work, but because I actually enjoy the translation work I’m doing, and the fact that it is due in three weeks, I am translating at home (or rather when I’m on my own in my apartment. However, this does not mean I’m going to coop myself up all day in my apartment. On the contrary, I decided I work later in the evening and go out exploring in the day. I believe this still to be a wise choice despite the fact that it is late in the evening and I’m still working on my page a day for translation. At least I’m working on my translation and putting my television w/vhs player to good use. J

I finally managed to roll myself out of bed around 10:15 this morning (I went to bed around 1 am but I’ve been having trouble falling asleep so I probably managed to by 3 am). Anyway, after getting read and having a quick breakfast, I decided I would take one of the walking tours that’s in my Japan Frommer’s guide. Granted, the guide is about four years old, but I figured that most of the stuff was probably still on the tour. There are two tours listed. I’ll probably do the more scenic tour on the weekend as there will be more people in the urban areas versus the older parts of the city. So my tour took me through Trendy Tokyo: Harakjuku and the outskirts of Aoyama.

After getting on the subway, going two stops, switiching to the train line, and then riding for four to five more stops, I eventually arrived at Harajuku. Instead of starting at the shopping part of the district, I actually began my tour at Meiji Jingu Shrine. The Meiji Jingu Shrine was beautiful. Located behind the JR station, the shrine seems to be off in its own naturey location. There is a beautiful path up to the shrine, and the shrine itself is gorgeous. I’m betting it wasn’t as crowded as it could be on the weekends considering there weren’t many visitors around at the time of my arrival. However, on my way in, an older French Canadian gentleman stopped me and we had a brief conversation. He asked me where I was from and I asked him what he was doing in Tokyo. Out of the corner of my eye I spied a Shinto wedding party (easily seen due to the Bride’s costume). Too bad the conversation went on longer than I had expected it to, I missed taking pictures of the wedding party. However, wandering around the inner sanctuary of the temple was pretty awesome.

Following Meiji Shrine, I returned back towards the typical Harajuku and wandered down the always crowded main street. I wandered into some of the stores this time, but I restrained myself from actually buying anything (though I have made plenty of mental notes as to which ones I will return to in the future so I can further expand my wardrobe). There’s no way I can’t go back! Besides, there is a crepe stand every few meters; it’s so hard to resist crepes when they are so plentiful!

I did stop at Harajuku Daiso though. It is a four story 105 yen shop. I did a little more shopping for my apartment and my livelihood: more food stuffs, laundry detergent (though I STILL have yet to figure out where I can do laundry), and a longer Ethernet cord (which on the package says it can connect from my computer to my Ethernet port in the wall but it LIED to me, so I still have to use my short cord…ARG). Other than that, it was definitely a win of a trip. And the store sells boxes so I have a place to buy boxes to send home other things I can’t take with me in my suitcases. All in all, I bought lots of stuff for little amount of money. It was amazing.

When I finally came to the end of the alley/street, I turned away from the main Harajuku district and headed towards Togo Shrine. In comparison to Meiji Shrine, there was no one around when I visited. On Sundays it holds a flea market, but today it was quiet, which was nice as I could wander around freely without having to look too much like a gaijin.

I headed back towards the main part of Harajuku, down the street, past the many department shores (e.g. Chanel, Burberry) towards Kiddyland. Now Kiddyland is AMAZING. It’s five stories of consumerism. I almost died on the second floor from the over flow of cuteness; it’s a floor dedicated to Hello Kitty items. It was so hard not to buy anything. The fourth floor is all about Disney. I thought the second floor would send me into epileptic seizures; the fourth floor almost caused me to go into cardiac arrest. There was so much Disney princess stuff and then Alice in Wonderland stuff, I wanted to buy it all! I will absolutely be making a trip back there to buy tons of stuff as somehow I was able to resist the consumerist urgest that have only gotten stronger since my arrival in Japan.

After Kiddy Land I wandered up out of Harajuku and towards Aoyama, which is just the next district over with tons of high class shopping, so totally out of my price range that I didn’t stay very long and retraced my steps, stopping by the people who were giving out free yogurt samples twice. It also tried to rain about three times at this point; it kept starting to drizzle and stopping. Finally I just put my umbrella away, frustrated by the indecision of the weather.

The tour took me next to Condomania. It’s a tiny store. Enough said.

The walking tour took me a few other stores, but essentially I had hit the major parts of the district. As it was only 2:00pm, I decided I would head to Shibuya, which was only one stop away on the JR line. However, since it was only one stop over, I decided to walk there for exercise, which ended up being a good decision. I got to see a great more of the city. I seriously am having issues with directions in terms of the fact that there I have no mental map of this city. Kyoto is so much easier to depict. I literally have no idea what Tokyo’s layout is. At least having walked from Harajuku to Shibuya I now have a little bit carved out in my head. Anyway, the walk was tiring but good, and I ended up wandering around Shibuya. I stopped in HMV and recalled how only a few years ago I bought a lot of music at the same store with my friends. After that, I found myself going to Book Off in search of some Japanese DVDs, hoping that they would be all regions so I could watch them on my laptop. But what I found was even better. I found DISNEY MOVIES IN JAPANESE ON VHS. I have a TV in my apartment with a VHS player, and I thought it would be fun to be able to watch movies while I would be translating (or even just while I’m eating dinner or something). So I bought the Aladdin trilogy, Snow White, and Cinderella II and the original Star Wars series for less than seven dollars.

Finally I headed home, eager to just collapse as I was so tired from my day. I came back and rested for a little. And then decided to make dinner as I was STARVING. I decided to try my hand at making ramen…and was SUCCESSFUL. So I ate ramen and watched Cinderella II, all cozied up in my bed.

Now I’m just chilling in my apartment, drinking tea, translating, and watching Star Wars (which is subtitled in Japanese). I’d say that this was a MEGA win of the day. J I love Tokyo.