Just like the Gwen Stefani song, when I went to Harajuku, that s**t was bananas.
(Cheesy, but let me feel clever for a second please)
After flying all day the day before, the 12+ hour sleep that I had after a full meal of Chirashi that my host mother prepared was the best sleep I feel like I have ever had. Before I get to everything that happened my first full day in Japan, I'll introduce my host family a bit.
I live with a family of four in a beautiful three-story building near Shinagawa. My host father works for a Japanese trading company and my host mother is a stay at home mom. Before they had a family, they lived in Taiwan for about eight years. My host father is fluent in Chinese, so it's been nice practicing both Japanese and Chinese with him. Nao is the oldest daughter. At thirteen, she can already speak, read and understand English very well (she's currently watching the Scarlet Pimpernel next to me for her advanced English class). She attends a private school here in Tokyo and is out the door at 6 am every morning and doesn't get in until 6:30~7 every night. Rio is the 赤ちゃん（akachan: baby) of the family. She is five years old and is learning how to read the first two Japanese alphabets (Hiragana and Katakana). She is extremely 元気 (genki: lively, energetic) and 可愛い(kawaii: cute). As a family, they have done everything to make me feel welcome and at home. They have made my transition to living in Japan so much easier.
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| Mr. Osako and Rio |
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| Rio, Nao and Mrs. Osako |
So, once I established my home base, I was able to go explore! Let me tell you, the pictures and everything the American media tells you about Harajuku does NOTHING to do it justice. It is AMAZING. Fashion everywhere, huge sky scrapers, kawaii trinkets. My head almost exploded from the craziness of it all. No matter what direction you looked you could see people that blew the top off of what you would expect stereotypical Harajuku fashion to be. The best way to explain the style would be if you picked out the most outrageous pieces in your closet and made an outfit out of them that actually worked. It was like runway mixed with ready-to-wear flawlessly.
I felt like such a stalker gawking at all of the people that I didn't want to be more rude and take their picture, but rest assured that I was able to get some good ones of the area as a whole! :)
I wanted to save the pop culture part of Harajuku for after I did the historical things. My first stop in Harajuku was Meiji Jingu. Meiji Jingu is a shrine that is dedicated to the late emperor Meiji and his consort. The forest that surrounds the shrine is composed of trees that were flown into Tokyo from over all of Japan and abroad to commemorate the emperor's achievements. The shrine itself is huge with many buildings. It feels like you're lost in a forest on a deserted planet when, in reality, you're in central Tokyo.
I was fortunate to see a traditional Shinto wedding ceremony while I was at the Shrine. There was a long procession of the bride and groom's families all wearing traditional kimono. It was absolutely stunning. The one thing that I would recommend to people traveling to Japan would be to go to the shrine on a weekday. Not that it was particularly crowded on a Sunday afternoon, but if it was completely deserted I feel that I would have experienced what the atmosphere was meant to feel like when it was built.
The first thing that crossed my path happened to be storm troopers. Not traditionally Japanese, but if any place was to have random storm troopers gathering at a crosswalk, it would certainly be Japan.
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| Only in Japan.... |
I spent the next few hours getting lost in the web of streets that compose Harajuku. I decided that I wanted to be surprised by Takeshita Dori (more on that later) at the very end. I walked the main street with all of the big stores (Zara, Michael Kors, Uniqlo, etc) and was unimpressed. The side streets are where the life of Harajuku is!
I weaved my way through side streets and found both cute and outrageous boutiques. As I window shopped, I was able to practice my Japanese with some of the store clerks standing outside flagging people down. I was in heaven. Without getting too cheesy, I felt as though everything I've put myself through these past four years was for this moment. For the first time, I've felt like I was living out my dream.
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| One of the intersections. Taken from the top of Tokyu Plaza Mall. |
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| Harajuku Station! |
While I was trying to lose my way through the alleys and shops, I was caught off guard by a guy with a camera speaking extremely broken English. He asked me if he could take a few pictures of me for his fashion blog. I applauded his effort but reassured him that he could speak to me in Japanese. We both felt a lot more comfortable in breaking the language barrier. He asked me various questions while he was shooting like why I was in Japan, where I learned Japanese, what my favorite place in Harajuku was etc. I laughed so hard when he first asked me to take pictures for his fashion blog because Rio helped me pick out my outfit that day. She has great taste, I suppose. :)
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If anyone in interested (and didn't see my Facebook post already), here is the link to his fashion blog (WARNING: it's entirely in Japanese):
Tatsuya Seki
After I made my through the side streets I decided to tackle Takeshita Dori. Takeshita Dori is famous in Japan for the weekend fashion. People wear the most outrageous things and walk up and down the street (more like an alleyway by American standards) of shops. Gwen Stefani has popularized this road in America through her Harajuku Lovers stuff, but like I mentioned before, that does nothing to do Takeshita Dori justice. It was crazy packed when I went. It was hard to even walk through the street. There were the craziest shops. When you first walked under the main gate of of the street there's an AKB48 shop (for an immensely popular girl group here in Japan consisted of 64 members), next to a lingerie shop, next to a heavy emo-goth shop with screamo metal music pumping from it. It was an overload of craziness that worked despite having nothing in common. I was excited.
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| The entrance to Takeshita Dori. |
After Harajuku, I had a few hours to kill before I headed home. I decided to try and find the ever-so-small Shibuya Crossing. If you haven't sensed my sarcasm by now, you never will. Shibuya Crossing is notorious for being the busiest intersection in the world. I think it has a total of 12 or so crosswalks. I couldn't count because there were so many people there that you couldn't even really see the road!
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| Shibuya Crossing Pre-Green Light and no, I am not that much taller than Japanese people, I held my camera over my head.... |
Needless to say, trying to navigate through that was exhausting. By the time I finally found my way through the crowd I was starving and my blisters had started to get blisters.
I stopped at a popular udon noodle chain called Hanamaru and ordered seaweed noodles to end my first full day in Japan.
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| First Udon in Japan! |
Next up, Zojouji and Tokyo Tower (kind of)!! :)
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