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Published: January 28th 2007
The last day of 2006 began with a trip to Starbucks (yes, I know..) for some caffeine, followed by a wander around Asakusa's main temple- Senso-ji. The area around the temple is lined with little vendor booths and food stalls, and it was fun trying to navigate through the huge crowd of people. But then it wouldn't be Japan without that form of "entertainment". 😉
Luke and Ian decided to sleep late, so by the time we were finishing our tour of Asakusa, they were finally up and moving. The five of us assembled at the train station around 11:30 and then headed to Shibuya to see the massive pedestrian crossing.
From Shibuya, we started walking towards Harajuku but stopped in Yoyogi park when we came across a curious group of street performers. The first group consisted of 5 guys, who were wearing outfits that would have made MC Hammer proud, dancing and doing skits to everything from Michael Jackson to movie soundtracks to Glenn Miller's "In the Mood". Nicole and I could have probably watched them for longer, but the guys didn't share our appreciation, so we moved on. The next performer was quite impressive- he was part
Senso-ji Temple
Not exactly sure the traffic sign adds to the beauty of the place..dj, part sketch artist. Unfortunately he decided to take a break shortly after we got there, so we only saw the ending of one portrait.
There is an area in Harajuku where teenage girls congregate, wearing some of the most bizarre outfits... sort of a cross between goth and baby-doll. Thanks to Gwen Stefani, the fashion has become quite well known in the western world. The area wasn't as populated as I had imagined it would be (maybe due to the cold weather). There were still some very interesting outfits though, and Aaron and I managed to get our picture with a couple of the girls.
I didn't realize it at the time, but right next to Harajuku is Meiji Shrine (one of the more famous shrines in Tokyo). The shrine is surrounded by a forest of evergreen trees and that's what intrigued me. Even though Kobe is supposedly one of the prettier cities in Japan, I have certainly missed being around nature. We explored the woods and shrine for a while but then hunger started to take over. Aaron, Nicole, and I had only eaten breakfast!
We called Sun Mi and arranged for her and Alfie
to meet us at the Roppongi subway station. Roppongi is an area that everyone kept telling us would be good for foreigners on New Years because there are a bunch of clubs there. At first we had a little trouble finding a place to eat because we were a little early for dinner. Finally though, we got a couple tables in a basement yakiniku restaurant. The food was fantastic- even the beef tongue! There was only one bad dish.. Luke made the mistake of asking our waiter what his favorite thing on the menu was, and then to bring us one order of it. It turned out to be chicken cartilage. I've been pretty adventurous with food so far in Japan, but I couldn't bring myself to give that one a go. We left a few pieces on the grill, hoping that maybe if we left them on long enough, they would just turn to carbon and then we could pretend we'd eaten them. Our logic failed of course! So instead, we hid them under napkins..
After dinner we started asking other foreigners where to go for the countdown. The majority of people said Club Vanilla, so that's where
Sake drums
At Senso-ji we went. It was a bit pricey and incredibly crowded- I heard from someone that the club can hold something like 4000 people! I had a good time though and even managed to meet a couple of really cool Swedish girls. We probably only stayed until about 1:30, but shortly after we left, Ian realized that he had left his backpack in the club. So we decided to kill time until 5, when the club shut down and they would let him back in to look for it. After a failed attempt at karaoke, we went to TGI Friday's and tried not to fall asleep at the table (oh wait, maybe that was just me!). In the end, Ian got his bag back- yay for Japan being insanely safe!
I then spent the first day of 2007 sleeping until almost 5 in the afternoon. Woohoo! It's gonna be a great year. 😉
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Denver
non-member comment
Tourists
It's got to be so hilarious to you to be on the other side of this. My many years in Florida with the millions of tourists, many Japanese with their camera's, always brought a chuckle. But to see you two next to those crazy dressed girls (who look excited to be there) made me laugh and see the irony of how we can be come the "Japanese Tourist w/ Cameras" Good stuff. Miss you bunches! Happy New Year!