You would have thought with having an earlyish night we would have been bright and chipper in the morning. Well you'd be wrong. I awoke sometime near 7, whilst most others were a little later. Or a lot.
When we are overseas, I'm a little task master like. I know we have a lot to do, and only a short space of time to do it in, so I get the whip cracking to get it all done. Apart from the fact that I wake up early normally, I don't like sitting around. So when Zoe decided to take her sweet time getting up and ready, we all got a bit annoyed. We had arranged to meet downstairs at 9am, so when she isn't ready at 9.50 and we are all starving, none of us were very happy.
Today we were off to Shibuya and Harajuku. Specifically, we wanted to show Zoe the cool boot shop in Shibuya, but also some of the interesting bits of Harajuku. After getting such a late start, we made our way to Shinagawa station which was to be our start point every day. We got a day tripper ticket, as our JR Passes had run out, and once getting inside, we grabbed breakfast at one of the cafes there. They did a decent coffee as well as breakfast, but I can't remember what is was, so it mustn't have been anything too special.
After jumping on the Yamanote line to Shibuya, we set out from the station. I'll often look at maps that are on the side walk to get my bearings, but this morning it was like they were made of magnets, because the way they told me to go had me thrown off. We walked around for about 10 mins, before we realised we weren't going in the correct direction, then headed in the direction we thought. When we came across the Donki, I knew we were about 3 blocks west of where we wanted to be, so pointed us in the direction my internal gps was telling us. Dean was thinking we had to go the other way, but fortunately I told everybody to wait, while I went and confirmed where we were/which way to go. Problem was, I was feeling drained with me needing vitamins or water or both, so once I had us in the vicinity of where we needed to be, I let the others guide for a little while. We decided to forgo the Uniqlo down the side street of Parco, as there are Uniqlo's everywhere. A quick pit stop in the Parco building, with a look around of the book shop in there and we were on our way. We could have gone to Shibuya 109, a building that houses the bleeding edge of the latest fashions, but with the late start and time ticking away, we canned that and went to the boot shop instead.
Frontier Shibuya as the store is actually known has some really cool boots. However, I don't really care, as I'm male and don't need 20 pairs of shoes, and neither did Dean or Paul. So we gave stuff a cursatory glance, before heading back outside. The owner of the shop was being weird, following the girls around, but not in a friendly "Can I help you with anything?" way. I remember he was like this last time as well, so perhaps he has a boot fetish, and this is his collection and he doesn't actually want to sell any of them.
We headed back towards the station via the Disney store. As much as Disney bores me, you have to give it to them for their attention to detail. The shop was similar in decor to what you'd find at Disneyland, with all the fittings suitably chosen. After we had quickly pottered around there, we headed back to the station and jumped on a train for Harajuku.
On every trip of ours, we've been here. We usually go to Kiddy Land in Omote sando first, before working our way back. We did that this time as well (although we did stop for lunch at an Indian restaurant first), and with Kiddy Land being refurbished, it had even more floor to ceiling of cute. We bought stuff, looked around, searched for each other about 4 times, before we were done and ready to move on. We next intended to head around the corner to UT, the shop where we get the shirts in the cans. We walked up Meiji-dori a bit, before stopping at the Audi dealership. It definitely wasn't this far up last time, so I asked a bike courier, who said the shop was no more! Another thing designed to thwart us....
We headed back towards Takeshita-dori (see previous blogs), and decided to leave the girls and go look at stuff for ourselves. We went to a few places that had toys and classic merchandise and stuff, before heading up the street to Jeans Mate. One thing I dislike about Japan is my size. I'm only slightly above average height here, but I'm more portly than the average Japanese male, so finding stuff that fits is hard. With my grey coat looking a little forelorn (I've had it 10 years or so), I wanted to get another one, but the ones I like the look of made me look like I was wearing stuff 3 sizes too small. So I abandoned that idea. Dean and Paul also saw stuff they liked the look of, but Paul needed permission from the missus about a shirt he liked, but Dean didn't think suited him, and Dean fitted most things, but wasn't really grabbed by anything except a brown coat.
We head a little further, grabbing a crepe to keep our energies up, before we decided we were done and went back to meet up with the girls. I need to use the loo, so I went to one in the building where we had left them. Who should I see coming out of the toilets but mum! They were still in the same building where we had left them... This was going to be a long afternoon.
After we all had met up, we walked back up the street towards Daiso 100Y shop. I didn't need anything, but with Zoe liking all the cheap knick-knacks and stuff, they looked around before meeting us back out side. It was getting on to 5:30pm on a Friday evening, and once we were all done (I did end up finding a nice coat at Jeans mate that fitted will), we headed up to the train station. Most of the time we use the subway system, but with our home station being a JR station it was easier to get around. Too bad, the Yamanote line has 3.7 million passengers a day, because at 6pm on a Friday evening, it seemed like every single one was on the trains. We lined up for one, but it was too packed, so we stayed at the front row waiting for the next one. People were packed in like sardines, when this weirdo girl (a wannabe asian, LBH whitey) tries to stuff herself onto the train with a couple of immovable boxes/bags. Needless to say she looked like an absolute fool, before deciding to get the next train. We got the next one and through we were all together, we were all together. It was rather squashy and the only time I've experienced it in our 5 trips over there. When it came time for us to get off (only 2 station later because we had to change lines mind you) Paul and I tanked our way out cutting a path for everyone to follow.
The next train wasn't nearly as squashy with some of us finding seats. Our next port of call was Tokyo station. After a day of walking, we all felt like a massage, as well as trying a few things in Liquors Hasegawa. We booked a massage each, but it was about half an hour to 45 mins wait for the next spot, so we pottered around, I tried some scotches that looked interested, before we went and sat down waiting for our turn. Paul must have been bored, because he didn't get a massage and with all of us lying on our faces, he wouldn't have had anyone to talk to. The massage was great, and the girl worked the knotted muscles around my spine, as well as a small portion of time on my feet, but I was feeling rather refreshed. Whitney and Mum weren't really hungry, Paul had already eaten and with a lot of places being full, we decided to grab some McDonalds (oh the humanity), and head back towards our hotel.
We arrived back safe and sound, eating ice cream and baileys, and having a beer as well, before everyone decided to turn in around 9.30pm. I noticed we've been watching a lot less TV this time, with no memorable ads getting stuck in our heads. But time to get some sleep... It's been a long day today.
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