Showing posts with label harajuku. Show all posts
Showing posts with label harajuku. Show all posts

Sunday, March 21, 2010

原宿 Harajuku



Across the tracks at Harajuku station is what appears to be the heart of the teenage fashion district. Again I made it there kinda early in the day so, while this picture shows what it was like before noon, it got busier enough that I heard mutterings of こんでいるね by some of the locals. There are a really wide variety of clothing and accessory stores there and once you get off the main roads and wander the side streets it was actually a quiet and nice area. The only weird thing that felt a little out of place was a few foreign run businesses where the guys would heckle passerbys to try and entice them in. It was more aggressive than the Japanese with signs yelling at you to come check out their stores. As for American type stores, Claire's was there, CK had guy ads, and Forever 21 was ridiculously popular.

After finishing up there I headed back to the station, noticed both trains stopped for longer than normal. They kept repeating something over the PA and I caught parts of it like the times but a nice guy next to me who was herding his 3 boys was fluent in English and explained that there was some sort of accident so it would be at least 30 minutes before the trains moved again...There have been wind and track problems in the last day or so due to some pretty strong winds.

明治神宮 Meiji Jingu




Across the tracks from the heart of Harajuku is a gigantic and important Shinto shrine known as Meiji Jingu. There were crowds of people there, and a wedding happened to be taking place as I walked into the main shrine complex with what looked like another one queuing up as I left. I had read about shrine etiquette but forgot most of it since I only happened to notice on the map that it was right at Harajuku so I tried to stay out of the way. You approach the shrine via a long walk through woods and streams. It was easily the most nature I've seen in Tokyo so far.

I've seen a few tour guides leading foreigners around and the lady at this one seemed to be carrying something like a swiffer duster to help the tourists follow her...