Tokyo Trip Day 2 (Harajuku, Meiji Shrine, Shibuya)

Before I start writing more, I must say that my style of traveling is very relaxed with very loose itinerary. It is normal for me to wake up and set off after noon, therefore I've never really traveled with a tour group except for school trips and except for those two trips to Tibet and Vietnam, which was also a customised private tour. I do not want to stress myself or get exhausted just because I want to see a lot of stuff, I prefer to do it at my own pace and savour every moment. When I'm tired, I'll simply give myself rest days or some hours of lazing at the hotel. I dont even mind that our stay for this trip does not include breakfast as it's a stressful thing for us to meet the breakfast timing, the typical hours when we go out till we're back in the hotel is from noon till midnight. I believe other travelers have their own habits, and they are back in their room earlier to get their rest, while we compensate for our late start by having late nights. Shinjuku is the perfect place for this, as its hardly like midnight when we come back each day, many eateries and some shops are still opened.

Anyway, I'm lucky as I have companions who are very similar in terms of our preferences and how much we like to walk or see. This is officially my first day in Tokyo and its also the only full day on a weekend, so my plan was to visit Harajuku to check out the teens and their special way of dressing, the nearby Meiji Shrine and then Shibuya.

I was pretty impressed with myself when I figured out how to use the machine at the train station to get ourselves Suica card, this is like our EZ link card (or the Hong Kong Octopus card) which has a stored value and we do not need to get tickets for every single trip as long as there's credit in the card. Anyway, the guy at the information counter told me that I have to get it from the machine and they do not issue or top up the cards at the counter. I'm pretty sure they will be happy to assist if I need to, but I was really glad when my attempts at the machines were successful when I could not understand the words. Luckily, there are enough Chinese characters on the display screen for me to make an educated guess, I think it will be even more difficult for travelers who cannot read Chinese characters.

 We were looking at this screen at the machine, and I used the bottom blue button for buying the card since the Chinese characters literally meant "buy", or rather "buy in". Later on, when I had to top up the card, I chose the bottom green button as the words read "in money". I was really amused with amazed with myself when I succeeded. Totally educated guess! Transport on the train is considered the cheapest way to get around but I realised that I need to top up about 1000Y everyday when we go to places like Odaiba, Disneyland etc.

(*Updated: A few days after this, we were using the Fare adjustment machine when we noticed a button on the top right corner of the screen and we realised that we missed it all this while. It says 'English' and pressing it actually allowed us to turned the instructions into English! I felt rather silly after that, haha)



The Harajuku (原宿) station was really crowded on a Sunday afternoon, we followed the crowd to cross the street towards a row of shops selling American brands like Nike, Garrett's Popcorn etc. When I turned back, I noticed the unique design of the station from the outside, it looked like a traditional Japanese building even though the area is filled with fashionable people. After we brought our jackets out the previous night, we had the Tokyo summer weather figured out and decided we do not need our jackets for most of these places. It was a hot and sunny afternoon at Harajuku, somewhat like weather in SG but much less humid. We looked for a place to have our brunch, and the pictures of teppanyaki stuff and steaks caught our attention again (its not me, but my companion who loves steaks). There was a long queue at this eatery (Grimm), which once again, has a narrow staircase leading down to the basement where the restaurant was.

This place did not have a English menu and the set meals and stuff was all in Japanese, therefore it was once again difficult to add on anything to the set meals, its also a lot of guesswork when we wanted to choose the sauce for the steak. The waitress finally pointed to the garlic sauce (which I thought was mushroom sauce) and told us its a popular choice. The food there was mediocre, but I guess there were not many restaurants around the area, which explained for the long queue. During the meal, I checked up on takeshita dori on my phone and I realised that we followed the crowd towards the wrong direction earlier, we turned back towards the train station. Shortly after we passed the train station, there it was opposite the station, the very crowded takeshita dori.

The start of the street is a downward slope, many tourists like us took this chance to snap a few photos of the very crowded street on Sunday. I was hoping to see some cosplay teens, as many mentioned that they will be at the Harajuku area on weekends, but like many others had blogged, we did not really see them.  I only saw a group of guys painted green and 'cosplaying' as characters from Plants vs Zombie. I burst out laughing when I saw them, as there were about 20 of them and they were completely green from head to toe. They were shouting and giving out flyers to promote some stuff.  

More about the dressing of the Japanese, I've noticed that many of the girls have tinted permed hair, mostly in shades of brown and they are styled really nicely. Like Taiwanese girls, they emphasize a lot of eye makeup (mascara, falsies), and even the older office ladies have those on. It seems like most of the ladies here are out and about with at least basic makeup. Dressing wise, the younger gals are fashionable but it was nothing extraordinary. 

There are about 4-5 shops selling crepes and on this hot Sunday afternoon, and these were the most crowded shops along this stretch. The taste of crepe and ice cream for the someone with a sweet tooth like me was irresistible, and I stopped at the most shady one to queue in line for one. There was a big range of flavours that we can choose from, the display outside the shop showing the selection of 'fake' crepes was really attractive. I've noted that many eateries have those on their display windows and I would say it really looked edible. Most of the crepe shops also have kawaii outlook and design, attracting people who likes their desserts nice and cute. Don't these look yummy?

The crepe was soft and thin, and we were glad that we bought just one to share between the two of us or it would really be sweetness overloading and too filling after our lunch. Just one crepe filled with banana, chocolate ice-cream and whipped cream was enough to satisfy our craving. There were also other selections with brownies, and even savoury stuff like pasta or chicken in the crepes.


We turned back after reaching the end of takeshita dori and navigated our way back to the train station. At the other side, the crowd was surging to Meiji Shrine. Many tourists were making their way there so it was easy to just follow the crowd. Most people stopped at the signature Japanese arch entrance to take some pics. After a hot afternoon at the crowded takeshita dori, the greenery and the cool breeze along this path was a warm welcome, the scene was such a contrast to the crowd we saw earlier. We saw some ladies in kimonos (or maybe just yukata, I cant tell the difference) but I didnt get their pictures as it will be quite rude to just take their photographs without asking.

These are actually sake offered to the shrine during important occasions.

Before entering the shrine, it is a form of respect to cleanse both hands and the mouth at this cooling pool of water. There were instructions written in English teaching us how to do that. 

Many tourists stopped to pen down their wishes and hang them at the shrine. I did not pay the sum to do that, just merely stopped down to read what was written.

The walk from the entrance of the shrine to the actual shrine itself was actually quite a distance, as there's a big park just next to the shrine area. We were quite adventurous and walked out of the shrine from another exit. We thought that we can locate the train station easily by just walking towards the direction we came from but we ended walking a really, really long way. The crowd we saw earlier was no longer with us when we exited the shrine and it was more than a kilometre walk, I think I blame it on my google map apps which didnt give us the shortest route. We were quite tired after all that walking, luckily Shibuya was just two stops away. 

Most people are really excited about Shibuya and did a lot of shopping. But for me, the famous Shibuya crossing and the statue of Hachiko were the main attraction. We were feeling so excited when we first crossed the street with a big surging crowd. I quickly located the Starbucks facing the crossing, its recommended by many others as a good location to people-watch and get a good view of the crossing, I made that my first checkpoint to rest my tired feet after taking enough photographs. This crossing is famous as its a intersection of quite a few roads, the traffic will stop in all directions and pedestrians can cross the streets to different areas all at once. The crowd is really magnificent, even though the intervals between the red lights were not long, there is easily a crowd waiting to cross after just a few minutes. This place reminded me of Fast and Furious 3 (Tokyo Drift) and I really wondered how they capture the junction in the film since its so crowded.

We were looking out for the Hachiko exit when getting out of the train station as some people have reportedly missed it. I've always imagined it to be inside the station itself but it was actually outside, in a small area where people are sitting down on benches, resting their feet. We crossed back to the train station area to look for the statue as we really wanted to take photographs of it, we're also enjoying the fun of crossing the road at the same time.











After doing a google search of the statue and comparing it with the surroundings, we finally saw it! In the spirits of the World Cup being held at this moment, it was actually wearing a blue scarf with the Japan flag, and I guessed it signified well-wishes for the Japanese team. When we were walking around, we also saw many Japanese wearing the Japan World Cup blue Adidas jerseys. The patriotic Japanese are really supportive of their team, but news came to us that they've lost the first match that day. 

After taking these pics, we were satisfied and proceeded to Starbucks to grab a cuppa. We were having tired legs from exploring Harajuku previously and I was really glad that the second floor of the cafe had a really big area. Even though we did not get seats facing the crossing, we managed to find seats at one side of the cafe. Feeling refreshed, we went to explore the few floors of 109 men's and Shibuya 109, but nothing appealed to us. It's a good thing I dont feel like shopping here and so far no shopping done yet, there's lot of things to see but none that I will really buy. We walked a bit more around Shibuya but we were simply exhausted and did not bother to go into most of those buildings to explore. We decided to go back to our hotel for a rest before dinner.

Back at Shinjuku train station, we noticed these guys busking. In fact, we noticed a few groups performing there everytime we walked past the area. I'm pretty sure they dont have to apply a license like what they do in SG, so its really a good way for people there to display their artsy sides. Some of the shows are interactive, like stand-up comedy, and majority of them are trying to sell their performance and get people to buy their CDs ( I saw a few selling theirs for 1000Y).

Katsukura

Shinjuku Takashimaya Times Square Building 14th Floor
Tokyo, Japan
Tel: +81 3 5361 1878
Daily: 11am – 11pm
Nearest Station: Shinjuku

After taking our rest, we ventured out again in search for dinner. The Takashimaya Times Square building is just ten minutes walk away from our hotel but we had not explored there yet. Instead of turning left after getting out of the hotel, we turned right into the quieter area of the Southern Terrace Exit from the train station. Its hard to miss the huge building, but most of the shops there like the big Kinokuniya, Tokyu Hands were already closed when we went there, it was almost 10pm when we finally made our way out! Fortunately, the restaurant I was looking for was still opened. I read quite a few reviews that they have very nice tonkatsu, thus decided to try it since its so near our hotel. 

There was no queue as it was already quite late and we went in immediately. Just like everywhere else in Tokyo, the service was really good even though they speak very limited English. They served us the Japanese pickles first, and taught us how to grind the sesame to make our own sauce. I love this DIY part of the meal and I find the range of sauce quite fascinating. We chose the basic tenderloin and loin tonkatsu meal from the menu, it came with a huge heap of cabbage which I loved and finished with the raddish pickles. The Japanese barley rice, soup and cabbage was free flow. 

There are sauces to mix with the sesame (sweet/spicy), sauce for the cabbage and more Japanese pickles. I enjoyed the taste of the tonkatsu, the loin was slightly tougher but some prefer this to the more expensive tenderloin. 

We were craving for desserts after the meal, it was said that there's a good range of desserts at the basement of takashimaya, but it closed early at 8pm. We walked around Shinjuku area for more than an hour to look for our desserts but most of those cafes close earlier than those serving the rice and noodles meal. We gave up and bought some snacks and ice cream from the family mart nearby.