Japan – Missing You
Sunday, March 28th, 2010Man, just saw this today and it makes me nostalgic. Tokyo kaiten sushi, 2009. Photo from our trip last year by Sarah Chang (my sister-in-law).
Man, just saw this today and it makes me nostalgic. Tokyo kaiten sushi, 2009. Photo from our trip last year by Sarah Chang (my sister-in-law).
Now that I’ve finished blogging each day of my trip, I thought it would be helpful to create a table of contents for the posts.
July 17 – Johnnie Hillwalker and Kiyomizu-dera
July 18 – Kinakuji and Ryo-Anji with George
July 19 – Grocery and Rainy Tonkatsu
July 20 – Mountains with Jeffrey Friedl. Shijo and Pontocho
July 22 – Kurama Temple and Kibune
July 24 – Edo-Tokyo Museum and Akihabara
July 25 – Meiji Jingu and Shibuya
July 26 – Harajuku and Shibuya
I have also collected my favorite photographs from the trip and present them to you here.
This morning I stopped by the local department store / grocery to pick up some of those sweet tofu rice sushi thingies and orange juice to bring back to the hotel for breakfast. The same woman was there, who had sold them to me earlier in the week, so I asked her what they are called in Japanese. Apparently they are called inari-zushi. Good to know. I snapped some photos along the way.
Today we will visit the hip and cool Harajuku, not too far from our home base of Shibuya. Harajuku is known for trendy and often outrageous youth culture, interesting shops and, best of all, delicious crepes. It’s not uncommon to see a group of young people dressed as vampires or gothic lolitas – completely made up right down to eye-color changing contacts – casually perusing the clothing stores, trendy shops and snack vendors here. Sadly I didn’t get many photos that show the unusual fashions because it was so very crowded. We must have come on a particularly busy day. As we entered the main shopping streets, we were swept up in a surging wave of young people doing whatever it is that they do.
Meiji Jingu shrine in Tokyo is a shrine built in 1920 for the emperor Meiji and his wife. It was destroyed (so many of Japan’s temples and shrines are destroyed) in the air raids of World War II and so was rebuilt in 1958. We want to visit this shrine today. First, a brief look around Shibuya and then brunch in nearby Harajuku (I can’t wait to visit Harajuku, but that’s for tomorrow)