Japan Trip 2010
Day Five

It’s too early to be up. Sleepy!

Chad doesn’t believe I saw a similar copper plated building we saw at the Edo Tokyo Museum. Here it is!

We’re trying out the nearby Metro line this time.

Not as near as the JR line, but within walking distance.

Making use of our 2 day free complimentary Metro passes from the airport limo tickets..

Had a quick look at the map before heading under.

Chad says more people take the JR line because it’s above ground. Not so depressing.

We need such anti-suicide gates in Singapore too.

Ueto Aya!

First order of the day was to get more concert loot. The metro line brought us closer to the concert venue than JR line.

The ‘YOU ARE HERE’ marking is at the bottom right edge of the map. Like, who does that?!

Fancy bling bikes.

Walking to concert venue. Chad got a bit annoyed that we’re visiting this place again.

Here’s how the hall looked like from the outside.

Wotas already setup shop outside, so early in the morning.

Got some additional stuff. I was tempted to go for another concert today.

Headed for Yoyogi park to check out cos-players. According to Chad they gather at the park on Sundays.

JR Yoyogi station.

There are several places in Singapore where a X crossing would be practical, but no, we prefer to tunnel underground.

Morning vitamins and pocky fix.

Munching on my Pockys while Chad figures out where we are. lol.

He led us through strangely deserted looking roads…

Where we eventually we reached… a bridge, with turtles.

Not a single cos player in sight. Wrong place wrong time?

Museum of old carriages and, other… old stuff.

Not paying to see old stuff, nope. Skip!

Mmm, tough choices.

Regret.

Sat around sun tanning for a bit. Chad’s stomach wasn’t feeling too good.

In Singapore people carry oars around. Here they carry bows twice their height.

Ended walking back all the way to the Meiji shrine.

In case you were wondering, yes we came here before a couple days back.

Me taking photos of people taking photos of people taking photos of someone’s wedding. Yes, I still find it rude to barge in on someone’s wedding to take pictures. I mean, like what are you going to do with the pictures anyway?

Impeccable attention to detail. I think it took them an hour to get everyone lined up and prepared for the shot? We didn’t stick around to find out xD.

With no cos-players in sight and nothing of interest, we headed over to Omotesando…

Where we came across the famous Ameba Studio.

Morning Musume, AKB48 and other celebrities have regular live radio shows here. You can watch them from the outside. There wasn’t any broadcast going on when we were there. They had this huge photo wall of all the celebrities that had shows there before, on display behind the window.

Looped back into the street behind Harajuku. We came too early yesterday, so we’re back again today.

True enough everything was open! Yay! Decided to head for lunch before shopping around.

Took a while before we decided on what to eat.

Decided on this cozy looking place.

The seating was a bit cramped, but the ambiance was good and we could see people walking by. It was interesting to see what the locals wore, and how we could easily tell apart tourists from locals just from the way they dressed.

Free drink that came with the pasta set.

I was never a big fan of any kind of pasta, but this changed my mind. One of the best simple meals I’ve had since coming to Japan.

Cool bike parked outside the place.

Went into some of the boutiques here. Mostly local brands. Didn’t get anything.

Saw this amusing ad along the way.

Hundreds of these cards were stuck onto the board. You could peel off the cards to reveal a poster. Interesting.

Street behind Omotesando Hills.

Yes we’re officially in high end territory.

I’ve never seen the inside of this place, even after walking by so many times.

So we went in for a closer look.

Looks like this inside. Very narrow rows of high end boutiques.

Their toilets were in a separate building outside. Weird.

Chad wanted to head back to Yoyogi park, maybe we were there too early, no cos players arrived yet.

So again we were walking back to Harajuku.

Finally tried the crepes. Satisfying!

Random guy on steps yelling.

Harajuku + Sunday = mad crowd.

Not cos players. Random people dressed up as… random things seeking attention maybe.

Decided to push on deeper into Yoyogi park. This was parked outside.

Found this group of super gel-ed hair peeps.

Chad says these are rockabilies.

Apparently they’re from different areas in Tokyo, and they gather here every weekend to have a sort of dance-off.

It’s not a rehearsed performance or anything, just people randomly dancing to old school music.

We squatted nearby to observe for a while.

Other tourists did the same.

After a while it got boring and we were off to check out the rest of the park.

Remember to hydrate!

Now Yoyogi park was absolutely massive.

There were clusters of people everywhere doing their own thing.

People camped around fountains and other water features.

These are how parks are supposed to be like. Unlike the mosquito infested ones in Singapore.

They even had a large dog pen nearby to let your dog run around.

Pens for different dog sizes.

5kg dogs here please.

Water points for both owners and pets!

How thoughtful :D

Map of the park. We walked through the entire thing and ended up at the south end.

Took the train back to Shinjuku for dinner. We were making full use of our free 2 day Metro pass, taking trains all over the place :D

Singapore food for dinner?

NAH!

After a whole lot of walking and wandering around in the cold evening wind, we managed to find one of the recommended places to eat that Chad compiled before the trip.

Garlic beef squares. Heavenly!

Bacon Pizza. This was so good, we ordered 2 pans.

Lemon beef square. Also heavenly!

Chad had some sashimi and octopus. Had some sort of omelet as well, but it wasn’t so nice.

That was about it for day 5. I was quite annoyed at how unproductive the day was. Didn’t see a single proper cosplayer. Yoyogi park was nice, but was way too boring for me. Plus we spent most of the day walking around in circles… should have gone for another concert dammit.