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Published: March 28th 2008
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Shibuya
The Shibuya area of Tokyo After we came back from Nikko we met up with another group of people from Kansai Gaidai. I had never really hung out with any of them, but they were all very nice people and I knew them from around school...oh yeah, and they were all SPANISH! Everyone except this one guy was from a Spanish-speaking country...Ecuador, Columbia, Mexico, Chile. The only problem with that was that they spoke in Spanish all the time. I studied Spanish in high-school but there was no way I could understand everything they said. Michael at least knew some more Spanish because of his background, but I found it very difficult and at times frustrating not being able to understand what they were talking about. Of course they didn't speak in Spanish the entire time, they would sometimes use English, but that was probably the worst part about being with that group. I had been focusing so hard on learning Japanese, and I had to completely switch gears to Spanish and try to remember stuff from high school! Not fun at all...
Sorry, guess I just had to vent for a minute...but anyway, about Shibuya!
If there is one word I could use
Intersection
The interesection right outside the station to describe Shibuya it would be CROWDED! One of the most amazing things about Shibuya is the intersection right beside the Station. It's this huge 5-way intersection where a ton of people cross at the same time. I've never been in such a large crowd before. And you have people going in 5 different directions so it's complete chaos! After walking through the intersection with the crowd one time, we made our way to the Starbucks across the street. We ordered some coffee and went up to the second floor, which had a great view of the intersection. I just sat there and watched the huge sea of people crossing the street for about 30 minutes...it was very captivating. I could have sat there all day and watched that intersection! There were just so many people. And from the second floor of the Starbucks, when the light changed you could see the people from each direction coming to meet at the middle, then converge into one huge mass! It was really interesting and really showed just how many people there are in Tokyo. Like I mentioned before, it is the most densely populated city in the world!
After watching
Getting Ready
Waiting for the light to change the intersection for awhile we decided to go back down and look around the area. We walked along the Center Gai Street, which is a famous fashion street, and looked around all the stores. We even found a store called Condomania...and it was just what the name implies, a condom shop. So we went in and had a quick look around the store, and there were some funny things in there. But I must say, the Handy House sex shop in Hirakata was far more impressive lol. Anyway, we stayed at Center Gai for the rest of the night. Then as we were heading back to the Station we had to look for the Hachiko Statue. It's this statue of a dog, and the story is that this dog would come every day to meet his owner at the station and even after the owner died he still came back to the station every day...so they erected a statue for Hachiko and now it's really famous! We looked all around Shibuya for that statue, and it ended up being right in front of the station. Oh and I also got some free hugs! There were these people just standing in
Walking
Walking through the intersection. It was so crazy I couldn't even take a decent picture, so this is what I got! front of the station with signs that said "Free Hugs" so we took them up on that offer! It was kind of strange though...
Another fun place near Shibuya we visited was Yoyogi Park. This park is famous for all the crazy people who go there during the day, people dressed up in strange costumes and playing crazy music, or gothic people. Stuff like that. Unfortunately we had to go on a Saturday, and Sunday is the day when all the weirdos come out. But we wouldn't be there on Sunday, so Saturday was the best we could do. Luckily the weather had cleared up by then and it was semi-warm so there were a lot of people at the park. Most of them were families and groups of friends hanging out, playing soccer or throwing a frisbee. There were also a lot of people playing music, like the drums, and there was this one group of people playing Jamaican-sounding music and people were dancing to it. I guess the strangest thing I saw that day was this one guy who was kind of like a cross-dresser. He was wearing make-up and wearing a pink apron with a pink
Starbucks
We made it across the intersection alive and went to Starbucks teddy bear around his neck, and some kind of pink crown/bear ears on his head. So at least I got to see one weirdo at Yoyogi Park! Then right outside the park we found some more free hugs! But these people looked kind of gothic, so it was a bit strange. People in Tokyo must really like giving hugs...
And I'll add one more thing to this post...my trip to the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation in Miraikan. This is where we got to Asimo, the most advanced humanoid robot in the world! Asimo was created by the Honda Company and looks like a mini-astronaut. They were doing a demonstration of Asimo at the museum, so we thought it would be interesting to see! And Asimo was definitely interesting. He could move just like a regular person. He could wave, turn his head, and even run! Although I couldn't tell if the robot's movements were being controlled by someone or if he was actually responding to directions. Since the whole demonstration was in Japanese, I couldn't understand what the lady was saying. And I think Asimo can talk to, but the voice of the lady speaking sounded
Look Familiar?
Looks just like any other Starbucks... just like a robot so I wasn't sure who was speaking at times...the robot or that lady lol. After the demonstration, which was only 10 minutes long, we looked around the rest of the museum. They had some interesting exhibits. One of them was a model of a spaceship that you could walk into and see how the astronauts live. They also had an engine from an actual rocket on display! The museum was also very neat itself...There was a huge globe hanging in the center that displayed a digital image all over that kept changing. And there was a spiraling ramp going around the globe that led up to the second floor of the museum.
Overall, all of these places were a lot of fun to visit! They all showed a different aspect of Tokyo...Shibuya showed how big of a city it is, Yoyogi showed the crazy side, and then the museum showed how important Tokyo is when it comes to new technology. I'm so happy I got to see so many different parts of Tokyo!
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