Harajuku

Apologies, there would be more photos, but Blogger is being a bitch and whenever you upload a photo it adds about 6 lines inbetween paragraphs.

I've laid out the currency in dollars because

1. there are about 100 yen to a dollar so to convert you just slot in a decimal place or add some zeros.


2. this keyboard doesn't have a pound sign
   

Like I said, I went to Harajuku on Tuesday afternoon. But first I'll bore you the other places I went.

Shibuya was a big scary shopping district down the road. I didn't like the vibe so I didn't stay long at all.

Then I went to the woods just outside of Harajuku. It was really weird to be surrounded by forest 5 minutes away from the station. Fun fact: damp Japanese forests smell different to damp English ones. They also have scary living noodle worm things-

It was hot and fairly gross, so I went and chilled out in Yogogogoyooogoogogi Park. There were people asleep on the grass and loads of freaky evil crows (you can really see why they put them in Resident Evil).

Oh and also some bloke bashing out beats on his bongos.

Anyway

boring

As I said to Jenny the other day, Harajuku is the bastard child of Camden and Carnaby street, dipped in marshmallow fluff and black glitter. Naturally, I loved it. The boutiques were really pretty, and every shop I went into I was greeted and fawned over. Pricing was a bit weird though- a designer tshirt was anywhere from $25-70, but they were selling My Little Ponies in one store for $30. If I'd known that, I would've bulk bought when Woolworths closed and then tried to flog them out here.

Lol condom shop

and in the boutique next door?

looooooooool

I would've bought it, but it was about $80. Boo.

There were so many shops that it was pretty hard to work out what order to go round in. Every street split off into 5 backstreets, each with shops on 3 levels in some buildings. Tokyo is a very vertical city- they don't really have a system of shops on the bottom with flats on top. It's shops shops shops for 6 floors. There's the main Harajuku street and Takeshita Street (I just read that out as Take A Shit Street...), but if you only visit them then you are depriving yourself of a lot of the little independant shops metres away.

Pro tip- there are bargains to be had in Harajuku and a plethora of styles, so if you're not into that frilly gothic lolita lace fest then you will still easily be able to find something to wear but beware; many of the clothes are made of really lightweight fabric. This is because it's in style in Tokyo to make up an outfit of layers, and if each layer was as thick as standard clothes then girls would overheat and faint in the street. They don't do that fake layering thing we do with the long sleeves sewn onto the bottom of short sleeves.