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On Friday, we woke up to a rainy day. Not letting that slow us down, we spent the day in both Harajuku and Shibuya. It was kind of interesting to see the city in the rain from the standpoint that life goes on, except with umbrellas. In a city as crowded as Tokyo, there is a ballet of umbrellas dancing through the streets, shifting side to side and up or down as needed to traverse a three-dimensional path amongst each other.

Harajuku is the fashion and trend-setting region for the city’s teenagers. Teens go there to purchase very elaborate costumes from any number of small boutiques and storefronts which are then modeled for each other and curious onlookers on Sunday mornings near the entrance to Yoyogi Park. There is a very strong gothic flavor to most of the costumes, with lots of black, boots, electric-colored hairstyles and leather. Unfortunately for us, we visited on a Friday, so there was really nothing to see, and the rain probably dampened any chances of really hanging out to people-watch anyway. We did pay a visit to a couple of stores in the area, and even purchased a pair of really cool prints by an artist named K. Mishiyima. I couldn’t find a lot of reference to his work online, other than a picture of another one of his paintings here.

From Harajuku, we went back to Shibuya. There we visited a huge multi-level bookstore where we picked up a couple of Japanese photography books. We walked up and down a few more of the narrow side streets, browsing through more shops that we hadn’t previously been through on earlier visits. While there, we picked up a couple more small things, and had another great ticket-vending meal, this time noodles with pork.

On Saturday, we checked out of the hotel, but had a couple of hours to spare in the morning, so we wandered around Ginza a bit more since it was so close to where we were staying. Like the previous weekend, the main shopping road through the district was closed to automobile traffic and became a wide pedestrian thoroughfare. The highlight of this day was the fact that we found a restaurant that Mindy had read about before we left for Japan, but we had previously been unable to find on two previous attempts to locate it. Given the fact that the restaurant was located within an alley of another alley, I’m impressed we stumbled upon it. Unlike the previous restaurants we had been eating in, we had to actually order our food without pushing any buttons and the food was prepared to order. Mindy had a couple of skewers of various meats and I had a rice bowl with chicken and capers. All of it was delicious and well worth the search. If you’re ever in Tokyo, look ‘em up. New Torigin in Ginza. You’ll thank us.

After lunch, we grabbed our luggage, caught a bus from our hotel to the airport, and boarded our flight back home. The entire trip home went without a hitch and we arrived back in Las Vegas on Saturday afternoon before we actually left from Japan, at least according to our watches. Interestingly, neither of us really had any major jet lag when we arrived in Japan, but it sure did hit us on the way back. Our sleep schedules are currently a mess. Ugh.

Long story, well, still long at this point, we made it home safe and sound after what we both considered a great trip. Unlike previous trips we’ve taken, this one was fairly off-the-cuff, yet it turned out great. We’ve both wished we had one or two more days while we were there to see more of the city, but we feel like we at least got a really good taste of what urban life in Tokyo is like. I think we’d go back in a minute if given the opportunity. Anyone want to sponsor the trip?

The last of the photos from this trip are here.