So, Harajuku is a place that I can only describe as artsy. There is a lot of fashion there but also places where you can buy traditional tourist stuff. I like the feel of Harajuku but the streets are really crowded and it is easy to get separated from your friends if you are not careful. Anyway some people bought souvenirs, but I kept looking at the gothic like dresses that I really wish I had the occasion to wear. Oh well. T.T We did pass the shop where I had bought my maid outfit one Halloween but we didn't go inside.
After Harajuku, we headed to Shibuya to take pictures of the famous Shibuya crossing. Again, I have been here before but I hadn't quite realized the significance of the place before. Basically, it is a street crossing where all four sides of the street cross at the same time. So during the walking times we'd run into the middle of the street and take pictures. It took quite a few walking lights to get all the pictures we wanted but it was a lot of fun. Kyle carried everyone on his shoulders (one at a time) to make the pictures more fun. ^.^ Poor Kyle. At this point, Lydon and Kyle had also put on I Love Japan headbands which made the pictures even more silly. There were quite a few Japanese people amused by our antic this time.
After Shibuya, we headed to my favorite part of Tokyo, Akihabara, the electric town and also home of the anime fans. This is the place you can buy lots of gadgets and anime toys, cds, dvds, manga, etc. For an anime fan such as myself, I am always happy to go see Akihabara, or also called Akiba by some locals. We checked out some of the stores .... which I resisted buying anything for myself though I did get a volume of manga for a friend. We almost checked out a maid café (as there were lots of maids on the street advertising it) but they decided it was too expensive and we left. I will have to try going to one sometime. It is one of those things I still haven't done. We also checked out an arcade where we did PuriKura (pictures that you take and make cute with words and designs). It was a lot of fun though hard to fit all four of us as it was meant for only two people. But we made it work.
After Akihabara, we headed back to Shinjuku to catch a robot show that a coworker recommended. We didn't know where to go and asked some Japanese teenagers and they were nice enough to literally take us there. This is not the first time a Japanese person has done more than just tell us where to go. It happened once or twice earlier in the day too. Anyway, I chatted with the teenagers for a while and they said that they didn't normally go to that area because it was dangerous though dangerous in Japan is probably still considered safe in America. Sadly though, by the time we got there, the show was sold out so we headed back to the hostel where we hung out for a while before I crashed for the night.
Our last day, I slept in for the most part but we had to check out at 10 so we took care of there. There was some drama that day but it didn't have anything to do with us so we did some last minute packing (not that I really unpacked at all) and headed off to Nippori where we had to transfer to catch our train to the airport. Since we had time, we stored our bags in a locker and went to visit some temples. At this point I said I was not going to buy something .... and we walk past a cat store .... meaning I bought a little phone charm and the lady gave me a free cat sticker. As it was the only thing I actually bought for myself on this trip, I figured that wasn't too bad. We visited some temples which had a lot of graves. I tried not to take too many pictures in these areas to respect the dead but I couldn't resist a few.
After exploring a few temples, some which were really big, we headed to the airport. I was pretty hungry at this point so we stopped at McDonalds and I tried this egg burger which surprised me because it was really good. Then I spent the last of my money (I was serious about only coming back with 50 cents worth of Japanese yen) on last minute souvenirs. Our flight was on time and we got safely back to Korea. The airports were again fairly empty and this time we got to sit on the bus on the way back to Suji where I then uploaded pictures onto Facebook and crashed for the night. My trip made me a little sicker but it was too fun to worry about getting sleep which I am now trying to catch up on. ^.^
Also, as a side note, the following weekend (since I am only just now catching up on the blog .... hehe) Chris and I decided to check out another cat café which is really close to the cat café we used to go to. This cat café was a lot nicer and even made us sanitize our hands before going in. It seemed more spacious and even gave us toast instead of cookies. They even gave us cat treats to give the cats which of course made the cats all flock towards us for food. Then they ditched us. The only thing I liked better about the previous cat café was the fact the cats would sleep in our laps. But I did get a tiny gray and white kitten to play with my Pikachu phone charm. It was really cute. And when we left, they gave us a free photo of one of the cats and I happened to get the photo of the kitten who played with me. ^.^ It was a fun time.
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