Japan Day Three
Our third day in Tokyo began in Shinjuku with a brief walking tour of the red light district. Red light districts on Sunday mornings are more like yellow light districts, so there really wasn’t much to see. While looking for a arcade palace we did meander into a very bizarre Manga shop by accident. With a name like “Gamer Paradise” you would have thought an arcade might have been involved. Not the case.
Next we waited for Doug, my friend in the Navy, to meet us for a trip to Harajuku. Sundays are packed in Harajuku and I was really glad the rain held off again today. We had lunch at a place that tricked us into coming with a very enticing menu on display outside. Once we sat down we were informed there were only four choices today, one of which was an mega sauced pork burger with lettuce and rice. I ate this and a tofu flavored ice cream.
We tried searching for the infamous Harajuku girls but found only a few. When I was here a few years ago, I remember a lot more people in costume than there were today, Maybe it was the cloudy weather that scared them off. We did come upon five guys in 50’s Grease outfits dancing to rockabilly music in a square. They were terrific dancers actually, despite being completely wasted. Somehow I felt the need to take close to 50 photos of these guys. I wasn’t alone though — one thing there is plenty of in Harajuku is super nice cameras. I felt like all of us photographers were just sizing each other up as we poached around looking for the weirdest costumes. I saw a few really tricked out set ups.
Meiji Shrine was next. By this point our feet were killing us so we didn’t spend too much time browsing around the grounds. I took a few photos, but was having trouble getting anything good because of the lighting. My shots from 2008 were much better in the full sun. There were also a ton more people there this time, something I’ve noticed about just about everywhere I’ve visited again.
We are back in the room now, preparing for our trip to Kyoto and then Osaka. It’s a weird feeling to pack a bag for a trip to a hotel, from your current hotel. Like a Russian Doll of vacationing. We are staying in Kyoto on Monday night and will be visiting Osaka all of Tuesday via the JR Trains. We got a fancy rail pass in the States before we left and can use the trains as much as we want for the next seven days. If we have time, we talked about picking a destination as far away as possible and just going there randomly. Pretty much pointing at the map and going. We’ll probably end up scaring off the locals in some obscure part of rural Japan.
