No trash

This is Nick again. I always start these because I upload all the pictures while Jerry takes a bath. You know, for such a clean city, there's almost nowhere to throw out the random garbage. We walk around with an empty starbucks cup for an hour before finding another starbucks to throw the cup out at. Not that we've been going to American chains like Starbucks. Much.

Anyway, we've got some fun tidbits from today to share before we pass out.

Meiji Shrine (and nearby gardens):

(Jerry) We decided to start off the day with something very touristy, the Meiji Shrine and the surrounding park. It's easy to get to, just a short train ride. Here's what the entrance to the Meiji park looks like:


The post and lintel gateway is called a Torii, and there were a few more of them on the way to the shrine itself. The park itself reminded me of Central Park since they share the common characteristic of being a huge park in the middle of a very urban setting. Although we could hear the train pass by while walking down the path, it wasn't so obtrusive that we couldn't enjoy the scenic walk. Along the way, we came across this display:

I'm not sure what it is, and the only description of it was in Japanese. My guess is that it's a set of drums used for some ceremonial event, but I'm sure that I'm completely wrong.

The entrance to the shrine itself included another Torii:



Past the Torii above was the gate to the Meiji shrine court:

And here's the actual shrine itself:
You couldn't actually walk up to the shrine, and I'm not sure if it is ever open to the public. They do have three wooden donation boxes where people drop some yen into and pray for good fortune. We saw a few people do this while we were there. While we were walking out of the shrine, we came across some sort of procession:


We aren't sure what this procession was for--a wedding perhaps? It's hard to tell from the photos, but the women were all dressed in beautiful kimonos. We couldn't get a close look a the woman in white. After bowing to the man in front, they continued their procession across the courtyard...we decided to walk to the Meiji Treasure Museum. Here's a picture of it from afar, providing a contrast of the traditional architecture in front of the cityscape of modern high-rises:

Ok, so it doesn't look that ancient and traditional from this picture, but being there and seeing it in person really made the contrast more apparent. When we reached the entrance to the museum, we were met with a notice that it was only open on weekends. We then decided to walk to the Meiji Gardens. According to the brief historical information that I read, this area was frequented by Emperor Meiji and Empress Shokan, and it has been preserved ever since. Below is a picture of one of the teahouses:

And here is the South Pond, where many koi and turtles reside. We got a sense that they were being fed a lot by visitors because anytime one of us was standing by the side of the pond, a huge crowd of koi would gather in front of us.

We walked further into the garden and came across this:

It was supposed to be an iris garden, but I guess we were there too early since they seemed to have just planted them...you'll have to imagine what this would look like if it were filled with blooming irises.

At the very end of this path is a well:

Legend has it that this well is special because of how it rises and falls, I think. Also, it's the source of water for the South Pond and the quality of the water coming out of the well is wonderful. There was a sign to the right of the well that said "no drinking," so we cannot vouch for the water's purity, but it looks very clear and pristine.

Afterwards, we went to an exhibit showcasing the attire of the Emperor and Empress. Many intricately embroidered kimonos were displayed as well as decorative fans and headwear. There was one kimono that was a traditonal cermonial woman's dress that was quite impressive. It seemed to be composed of five layers of fabric and looked incredibly heavy. I'm amazed that anyone would be able to walk in something that looked incredibly cumbersome to maneuver in. [Nick's editorial note: Judging by the clothes, they were short. Smaller-than-Jerry short.]

Harajuku (and Aoyama):

Nick here, I'll be finishing the commentary, I guess. We left the Meiji area and crossed into Harajuku. You might find this word familiar from a certain Gwen Stefani song that references Harajuku girls. They basically are young girls who do cosplay and hang out in certain public areas. We actually saw some in Shibuya yesterday, but none in Harajuku itself. :-)

We started by finding lunch. It was a simple cafeteria-style place with pasta, roast chicken, and curry. For cheap, simple food, it was quite tasty. I felt like we should try harder to seek out Japanese food, but to be honest, there's quite a lot of non-Japanese food in Japan. Notably, Italian and French, but also Indian, British/Irish, hotdogs and other random things. We were hoping for ramen-ya or some form of real, simple Japanese food, but those places are mostly the cheap standing restaurants (yes, where you eat your food standing up) that salarymen go for lunch or for a light dinner before heading to a bar to drown their day's stress.

So, we wandered down the street, found Kiddyland (sorry for not getting a picture of this), which was a glorified children's toy store, though I'd prefer the old FAO Schwarz on 5th Ave that no longer exists. We found a couple other nifty stores; Harajuku is a good area for the quirky boutiques.

We saw this clothing store and thought of California. :-) We wandered further down the street and the shopping went way upscale. We passed a mall called Omote-Sando Hills (I've noticed a few places that use the words "Park" or "Hills" to add an upscale note). It had some nice stores, but the really nice stuff was in Aoyama, particularly the Prada store.

This is psychotic, ne? ('ne' is like the canadian 'eh'.) The inside was all white. And I mean all. The white tiled floor led seamlessly into white carpet. The walls were white plaster that would curve into shelves in some places. The white staircase that followed the angle of the windows up the side of the building went up five floors. Men's was the top floor, of course. There was actually a great view up there. Oh, and the dressing room was interesting. I only saw from the outside; it looked like a pod set into the floor with couple steps down into it (it had a round top like a submarine). The anteroom of the dressing room had a tv and seating. Jerry went inside. Here's his description: Well, Nick pretty much described the lounge area of the dressing room rather well. It had a nice view of Harajuku since it's located on the 5th floor. The dressing room, which there was only one of, was covered by a semi-transparent plastic curtain with some pattern to it. It did make me a bit self conscious whenever the salesman came down into the lounge area to bring me a smaller pair of pants or shirt 'cuz he could basically see in while I was changing. The room was also white, which wasn't surprising at all, and it was sort of egg shaped...basically, the room was very round. About the only non-round part of the room was the floor. And that was it for the only dressing room on the men's floor. I wonder what would happen if they had more than one person needing a dressing room?

Akhihabara:
So, I've heard a lot of things about this place, mostly from Anime. "The home of the latest electronics" is actually kind of mundane. The things that really make this area interesting are:

1. Just about every store for a few connected blocks is an electronics or anime / video games store.
2. You could build your own computer, and with very good specs, while saving a lot of yen, if you buy all the parts here.
3. Narrow shops would go up 6 or 7 floors, all with electronics or anime.
4. As mentioned, lots of anime, lots of manga, CDs of anime soundtracks, and dojinshi.
5. Dojinshi is manga porn, basically.
6. There's a lot of dojinshi.
7. And non-dojin anime.
   
8. Oh, and a couple girls doing cosplay.
9. But still, lots of porn. Good thing they make it clear where the 18 plus areas are, so it's hard to find yourself lost there.
   

We also liked the pretty lights and the games to play. Oh, and there was this train overpass where they'd built small buildings underneath it (such as a KFC). I love the efficient use of space in this city. When real estate is this much of a premium, you can invent new real estate, if you're creative enough.
This was a sega arcade-type place. Lots of those machines where you move a crane around and then try to pick things up. I always assumed you could never pick anything up with those, but Jerry succeeded a couple times, mostly looking for Mario stuff. Oh, there wasn't much chococat among the Hello Kitty stuff, so Jerry was sad.

(Jerry) So yeah, the whole not being able to find anything relating to Chococat was disappointing, but not all that surprising. But it was a shock that none of these stores sold any Super Mario toys, and having to play those crane games in order to get them was rather frustrating. In fact, the only Mario thing I got from those games was a "fire flower" mini, which seems to serve no other purpose than being a mini. It's not a magnet, or a keychain...and it can't stand up when placed on a table, so I can't even display it on the window. Maybe I'll have Chococat hold it in his hand...

There were lots of otaku here. Otaku have a certain look about themselves, which is much like what some Americans think of as dorky: unkempt hair, poorly dressed, and possibly overweight and wearing glasses. That and they walk into the dojinshi section unabashed. I suppose I should stop harping on that. There were some cool electronics, actually, new phones that we don't have in the US yet. Ipods are big there, but they're the exact same as ours. Video game systems are cheaper by about 15% than the US, but that may have more to do with the exchange rate than anything else.

By the way, for dinner we came back to Shinjuku, and found a building that was five floors of restaurants. In Tokyo, one could say that the "when it rains, it pours" concept applies to commercial concepts quite frequently. What I mean is that there are whole neighborhoods of electronics, bookstores, clothing, and food.