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Tokyo Part 2: Unfortunately we woke a little late again, still trying to get over the jet lag! Our original plan was to head down to the fish market, however it was an early morning pre 9am so we decided to give it a miss. Instead we headed to the Imperial Palace East Gardens, it had been recommended in the guide book. Although it was a nice garden it was nothing compared to those of London or the National Trust, to be honest it was more of a park. On our way out some Americans actually asked us what was in there Matt's reply was 'its just grass!' I think they got the point!
Next stop Shibuya: this district is famous for the 'Scramble' , which is an intersection with multiple crossings, up to 1000 peoples can cross when the lights go green. The area is filled with giant screens and advertising boards. It wasn't of a much of a scamble though! All the locals carefully meander past each other without even knocking into anyone.
Harajuku was the final district on our to do list of Tokyo, so we caught a train again. It's an area known for its fashion and pop culture. But before we explored that we headed over to Meiji-jingu, a shrine hidden in the woods. It was jam packed with tourist and locals, but that didn't stop it being one of the highlights of our time in Tokyo. You pass under two huge wooden gateways and follow a path through the woods passing traditional lanterns and decorations. You appear at the clearing of the main shrine again made out of dark wood. However unlike the last shrine we saw this one it build as a large rectangle with a open court yard in the middle. We performed the cleansing ritual again and set off inside to explore. The place was magical even with tons of tourist, the courtyard contained two huge trees with different things attached to them for prayer. While we were there a couple of traditional weddings took place with the bride and female relatives wearing their Kimonos. It was an interesting sight to see, it just makes Nicole think of the Mulan film all the time, even though that was set in China. The religion here is a mix of Buddhist views and Shinto the beliefs of worshiping your ancestors, very unlike the religions in the UK and Europe.
After our dose of culture we headed over to Takes***a Street, yes you read that correctly! It's not devoted to what you think, its the main high Street for the crazy pop culture fashions of Harajuku. Packed full of people buying clothes of all types. They love their cartoon animals and doll like clothes. We even saw a few people dressed up in their outfits and platform shoes. Not only are there clothes shops, but the Japanese seem to have an extremely sweet tooth and still stay slim! All the stations and streets all over Tokyo, not just in Harajuku, are packed full of cake, cookie, crêpes, chocolate, cotton candy and sweet shops. Not just simple little cakes but extravagant ones filled or topped with cream and icing and fruit! They love sugar here, its made us feel very worried about there sugar obsession!
While in Harajuku we headed into a shop that was solely devoted to stickers that had been designed by the employees. Matt purchase two for his notebook, they did look really cool, and people kept heading in and scanning for more stickers to buy. They love to collect things here. After shopping we popped into a local Tempura restaurant for a snack, we've seen them all over the city and it was delicious. But the brown green tea they served with it was not too our liking!
We ended the evening in Shinjuku, which we had previously visited on our first night, in a Sushi bar. We sat at the bar next to the conveyor belt selecting the plates we wanted, while a steady stream of people arrived. It was relatively cheap, though we obviously were not in the best restaurant in town. The sushi was topped off with all the seafood you could imagine eel, scallops, salmon, crab, octopus, prawns, squid and more! Sadly there were no vegetable ones in sight and matt tried a few raw fish ones but he wasn't too keen. It's a texture thing here, its all very slimey and chewy even Nicole couldn't eat some of them!
Tomorrow we leave Tokyo for Kyoto by Bullet train.
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