Harajuku Funkiness

Yesterday’s travelling caught up with us more that we initially though, with the maid waking us up at 11am to clean the room. We hopped out of bed sharpish and started our second day half asleep.

Since it was Sunday we decided to go a few stops along the Yamanote line to Harajuku where we saw all the young and trendy Tokyoites in their funky costumes. A few goths were there along with the ‘Free Hugs’ guys, and we took a few photos before heading into Yoyogi Park.

We posed for a quick photo at the huge Tori gate and headed into the Meiji temple where we saw a young couple getting married and possibly the world’s cutest toddler in a mini Kimono.

Tori Gate

There was a bit of a photo scrum at this point so we went off the peruse the architecture of the shrine, only for K to get us into trouble for sitting on the steps. Can’t take him anywhere!

Now woken up, we returned to Harajuku and walked around Takeshita Street and Omotesando, stopping for a bite to eat and a can of coffee. Eventually we ended up in Shibuya very close to the huge central crossing there – a five-way traffic/pedestrian battle overlooked by giant video screens, almost like something out of Bladerunner.

The futuristic theme was continued in the arcades we found with most of the games being of the networked, multiplayer variety, everything from horse racing to the POD network games mentioned yesterday.

Shibuya Crossing

I had a quick go of Tekken 6 and got my butt kicked in High Definition. It was worth the ¥100 (50p).

Eventually we made our way back to Harajuku and rejoined the enlarged crowd at the bridge where we took more photos of the various cosplayers, including a 6ft man dressed as a woman and a shorter girl dressed as a Mortal Kombat style character. We posed with a couple of them because, hey, why wouldn’t you? K chatted to a Japanese woman from Australia who looked bemused by the proceedings and refused to have her photo taken with the performers, and everyone seemed to be having a good time.

Footsore but thoroughly entertained, we headed back to the hotel pausing at the 7-11 for something to eat, and went in to blog. We put the (HiDef) TV on just in time to catch a bizarro eating competition with people scoffing platefulls of chicken and squid, and later watched all the drama of Felipe Massa pull out of the pits with his fuel line still attached in the Singapore Grand Prix, handing his position to Hamilton. Hurrah!