TO-KYO! Hell, yeah! (2)

Hachiko says hi.

Sunday! Shibuya! Many photos were taken of Hachiko the blindly faithful dog and that street crossing before an essential coffee stop. Next, we shopped, but only in HMV, Tower, Loft and the Disney Store; all of which are much like the same things in Okayama, just on a Tokyo scale, of course. Next, we had a decent spaghetti lunch and a sublime icecream from Hagen-Dazs, and a stroll up to Harajuku and Yoyogi-koen.

I have really fond memories of Yoyogi-koen from my previous, pre-JET trip to Toyko with my family; I remember looking at the food stalls and painfully deciphering the hiragana I’d tried to teach myself – “ya…ka….zo….ba? Yakisoba! Cool! What’s yakisoba?” Today, we first saw the Tokyo Rockabilly Club dancing up a storm, then some badaaaasss BMX dudes, before finally finding our way to the rather legendary Harajuku girls. Ask Gwen Stefani, she’ll tell you all about ‘em. I’ll just explain with photos, and just say that they’re very weird, and a little bit awesome.

Screw the mouse - this is the happiest place on Earth.

Also at this point it’s worth mentioning the odd culture shock I had in Tokyo. I’m used to being the only foreigner, or all the foreigners being residents; I’m also used to two broad categories of Japanese people – those that assume you can speak Japanese (because what kind of barbarian doesn’t?) and those that assume you can’t (because it is the world’s most difficult language and foreigner simply cannot speak it). Seeing mobs of tourists, no-one giving a crap about our being foreign, and people asking “can you speak Japanese?” instead of making assumptions – well, it was all very refreshing.
The next stop was Meiji-jingu. There was a wedding party moving through, and with everyone dressed traditionally and looking immaculate, the army of tourists turned into an army of paparazzi. Weird.
Finally, nearing the point of exhaustion, we subwayed to Shinjuku, and shopped at Tokyu Hands and Kinkuniya, where I found three near-perfect books; a new one by primatology legend Frans de Waal about the common ground between human, chimpanzee and bonobo behaviour; an adult textbook that will save me a lot of eikaiwa preparation work (why didn’t I think of that before?); and a wonderful book in French, Lisa et Gaspard au Japon. Yes, I bought a children’s book in which two fluffy little dogs go to Tokyo and struggle with hashi, futons, toilet buttons and slippers. Due to absolute exhaustion, we grabbed a fresh burger at Freshness Burger and another coffee before retreating home.
Monday! We got up early-ish to get to the Tsukiji fish market before it closed. Little did we know that being a public holiday, it was already closed. We got there eventually, after more “fun” subway station navigating, and yes, it was all closed. It was a bit like, “it looks like it would be great… if it were open.” However we were only two stops away from Ginza so to Ginza we went.
In Ginza, we found the first alfresco café I’ve ever seen in this country (hallelujah!) then went to the same department store food hall that my Dad and I famously gorged at all those years ago. Sadly, the samples were reduced to some sort of not-mochi with the dreaded kinako, and one plate of wonderful chocolates. We tried another department store in the hope of free food, but to no avail. Instead, we had a quick look through the Sony building at the newest stuff, where the theme seems to be “the same… just smaller.” Finally, it was back to Tokyo, for omiyage shopping, a bento lunch, and a shink home.
Four hours on the shinkansen; one on the local; bed; exhaustion. Done.