Harajuku is Tokyo’s central hub for the weird and wonderful, its colourful streets are filled with interestingly dressed people, and it offers a plethora of wacky and offbeat experiences. Food, Fashion and Festivities {especially around this time of year} are plentiful, and last night 夏帆, 桜, 莉莎子 and I spent the evening exploring the area.

After doing several laps of the main street, 竹下通り, we descended underground in to a shady looking building to do some Purikura. This is a Japanese photo booth that involves timed editing, and needs a post to itself, so I’ll save the nitty gritty for another day. After taking several photos, we re-emerged outside to find it slightly less crowded, and went in search for food.

Though not famous for its Japanese food, Harajuku boasts many foreign dishes for tourists {and locals} to try, and we decided to go to a spaghetti shop. The food was very cheap compared to rivalling shops, but delicious. Feeling the call of familiar food, I ordered mozzarella tomato spaghetti, and was really happy with my choice. A photo of my meal is below. At most Japanese sit-in food shops / restaurants there is a table holding items such as sugar and napkins. This may seem normal to Westerners, but these tables also hold sugar syrup and an incredibly odd-tasting coffee cream/syrup milk. While waiting for our host sisters to return from the bathroom, 桜 and I opted to try this coffee concoction, shot style. What we expected to be smooth milk turned out to be odd tasting cream lumps, and our eyes met as they watered in surprise. Perhaps the coffee milk tastes better actually mixed in with coffee, but I don’t recommend drinking it alone.

Following our main course we moved down the street to try “Santa Monica Crepes”. さくらand I ate the Caramel Cream Cheese Nut one, whilst 夏帆 opted for Matcha Vanilla Ice Cream Fudge Brownie. The variety of crepes surprised me, likewise the interesting combinations of sweet and savoury, as I found out from the Taco Ice Cream crepe. I found is humorous that, in Harajuku, the crepe shop names were that of foreign places, whereas in Australia, most Harajuku style crepe shops are named just that, Harajuku crepes.

After dinner, our gang traipsed off the beaten track and explored the outskirts of Harajuku. We went in to several shops and were surprised by the cheap prices. There, you could buys shoes for around $10! We spent a lot of time browsing, and eventually stumbled upon the Disney shop. It was really beautiful, marketed towards older people rather than the commercialised craziness of Disney Land. Inside, there was a huge screen that played memorable Disney songs accompanied by relevant clips from the movie.

Trying on glasses in a shop

The shops were all incredibly bright and colourful, and it was interesting to see the difference between marketing in Japan and marketing in Australia. As always, I am going to include some Japanese vocabulary that I recently learnt.

Out of these, my personal favourite would have to be 'ladybird', though 'tantrum' is also tempting. Tomorrow, I will go to the aquarium with 桜 and her host mother. I’m looking forward to it!