Temples shemples, Let's shop, eat and drink beer! - Tokyo

Day 119- 127
Tokyo, Japan

Mooshi Mooshi

We arrived into Tokyo on the morning of May 7th and we greeted my G;s friend Shino at the airport. It was a great reunion for G and Shino since it had been some time they had seen each other. We made our way to Shino's amazing apartment in the .......area of Tokyo. Shino had to get to work and the two of us were exhausted and stayed in to catch up on some rest. We did eventually get out of the apt. to see the city fr dinner. We met Shino in Shibuya near the famous "dog statue". As most of you know, G had come to Japan a few years back so she was slightly familiar with the area but the two of us had our eyes wide and jaws open looking at all the lights, people and commotion that is Tokyo.

We really didn't have a plan of what to see and do while in Tokyo or even how long we would stay. We took every day really easy and had given up the constant go-go-go attitude that we had in South East Asia. Most of our time was spent shopping, eating or drinking, which made our time in the city feel more like a vacation then a backpacking trip. We got to do our hair and makeup, dress up in cute clothes and indulge ourselves with all sorts of food. We ended up staying 8 days in Tokyo before we very reluctantly left to move on.

Even though G had done a lot of things in Tokyo before it was nice to see most of it all over again and be with a girl this time as well (i.e. shopping partner). We spent many hours along Takeshita Street in Hirajuku trying on just the cutest outfits imaginable while trying to spare too much damage to our credit card. Everyone in Tokyo is dressed so cool with their own unique personal style. We tried our best to "fit in" with the locals like we've done in every other country so we had no choice but to accept their culture of excessive shopping and dive in head first. It was just so much fun to see all the Hirajuku girls all decked out in full makeup, hair and costume. We joined in by buying the cutest dresses, sweaters, shoes, hair bands and socks. G around our 4th visit to Hirajuku adopted a policy of "if an item is more then $30 she can;t try it on", which she kept to, well most of the time. We were in heaven and all of our shopping reminded us of our days in London. The clothes really weren't that expensive compared to New York or London, but we did have sticker shock compared to prices we've seen over the last 4 months. It was a nice way to ease back into prices that we would again see in the West in just a few weeks.

Also off of Takeshita Street we found one of our favorite things in all of our travels - Pikaru. Its a store of photobooths...........They are pretty much all over Japan and it quickly became our obsession. It was all in Japanese so our first time in one was histarical because we had no idea what button to push or what the voice in the booth was telling us to do. Luckily we got Shino to come with us one time and she showed us tons of things we even realize were options for us.

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Part of trip: Asia Adventure

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