Japan Day 11

Japan Day 11

Today we went to Harajuku. There were lots of people with incredibly bizarre costumes and wardrobes and plenty of shops selling unique japanese clothing which was all cool and neat. But, the place was sooo crowded and so loud it was just way too much to deal with. There is a major shopping street, this street was packed to the brim and it was crazy hot out. Then we went inside the major clothes store in Harajuku and this place was just utter insanity. People were yelling at every store about sales, they were holding up giant signs and screaming out of cones while dozens of people poured in from every which direction. There's a video of some of the craziness but you had to truly be there to understand. We also met with Asami in Harajuku and she guided us around much of the area. Asami went to rutgers as part of an overseas program and became friends with Amanda who was a part of the same program, I met Asami while she was in the US twice in NYC. In any case she helped us get around and also introduced us to this really good food, these cooked squid balls with different toppings on them, very good!

Then Asami led us to Asakusa which is a more traditional part of Tokyo. They had a long shopping strip similar to Harajukus except that all the stores sold traditional japanese merchandise and the whole place had that old Japan vibe to it. It was pretty neat to see this side of the city but there wasn't really anything that we were particularly interested in buying.

We then said our goodbyes to Asami, hopefully we will meet her again next year in Tokyo or the next time she visits the US.

Then we met up with Yuki for our last visit with her, she treated us to an amazing Yakitori restaraunt. Really great food! Afterwards Yuki took us to an equally amazing coffee place. Everything inside was very fancy and seemed to be antiques that had been cleaned up. It was a very nice end to a very tiring day. For our last two days here we are going to just do a little more shopping and hit up the hot springs once. So there will likely be only one more post before I get back to NJ as we will be taking it easy for the end of our vacation.

It's been amazing and I plan to put together a polished complete video of our trip in time with all the great footage I haven't been able to post here.

Tomorrow Shopping, Shinjuku, & Shibuya

Later