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Published: August 19th 2009
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 they hadn't seen each other in some time. Shino brought us to her apt and had us settle in before going back to work. The two of us were exhausted and stayed in for hte rest of the morning to catch up on some rest. Eventually by late afternoon we pulled our selves together and ventured out of the apartment. 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
Complicated?
This is the machine you buy train tickets from.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,
Harajuku
"Take *hit A" Street - ha ha ha sweaters, shoes, hair bands and socks. Around our 4th visit to Hirajuku, G adopted a policy of "if an item is more then $30 she can't try it on", which she kept to, 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 - kind of hard to explain. They are pretty much all over Japan and it quickly became our obsession. The places were usually pretty busy (but then again what in Tokyo isn't) but we quickly realized that most of the people taking photos were school children probably between 14- 17. The "directions" were all in Japanese so our first time in one was hilarious because we had no idea what button
Our fav Gyoza
Boiled or Steamed - so yummy 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. And then continued to spend hours in these photo booths with the rest of the school children in Tokyo.
xx
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