Silver week: Harajuku

This has been a long week! Work has been slightly stressful. Last week it was stressful because I was planning whole classes for the first time. This week I'm not doing any planning but theres still that pressure to produce a class thats interesting for the kids, that lets me know what their English level is, and that shows the kids what their teachers want them to see. Each school expects something different of me and its tricky too figure out what each one wants.

Anyways, by the time Friday came around I was exhausted. Luckily, this weekend is a 5-day weekend!!! Its a holiday called Silver Week. Monday is Respect for the Aged day, Wednesday is the Autumnal Equinox, and Tuesday has become a holiday simply because it is in between two other holidays.

Kris and I wanted to use this mini vacation to travel and see something new and interesting, but we don't want to spend much money. We've been going through our Lonely Planet travel book and we've decided to explore more of Tokyo- specifically Shibuya and Harajuku! We figured these parts of town were so big we could easily spend all 5 days on just them. We have totally underestimated the size of this place though!

Today we went to Harajuku.

We had a couple of stores and restaurants marked down to see and we just wandered into shops on our way from place to place. First we stopped at Harajuku Gyoza Ro- this place only has gyoza and only has it a couple ways- boiled or fried, with garlic or without. I got 6 garlic gyoza fried for 290¥ and Kris got 6 boiled without garlic, same price. The restaurant was one tiny room the kitchen in the center, a bar with stools around the kitchen on 3 sides, and small booths along 3 walls. We got seats at the bar right next to the "grill". Since this place only does gyoza they had this really interesting thing that can boil the gyoza then, after water is removed, fry them in the same tray. We got to watch this whole process while we ate, and it looked exhausting- the cook had a big demand to keep up with. Shortly after we started eating the line to get in was about 10 couples deep. The gyoza were delicious- you could taste a hint of fresh ginger- and they were soft with a little crunch.

After that we walked around some back streets of Harajuku.

At one point we stumbled across a store called Kiddy Land. OUR NEW FAVORITE PLACE. Its basically a 5 floor store that has toys and merchandise from all sorts of favorite movies and shows- everything from Star Wars to Sanrio, Disney to Harry Potter. Their collection of Star Wars merchandise has Kris and I at its mercy. We spent too much money their already with lots of promises to return.

We saw all sorts of neat shops and neat people. Tons of fashion stores- and everyone looked so stylish. I don't know if it was normally like this or just Silver week, but it was pretty packed. At one point we saw a pet stroller just full of kitties! This guy had nearly ten cats piled into every corner of this stroller, even underneath in the bottom basket. They just sat their with their legs sticking out and didnt move, it was so amazingly bizarre.

In this picture you can see the yellow bumpy brinks- these are found on all main roads and public spaces like train stations. I believe these are for the visually impaired. The straight long groves lead down the middle of the sidewalk and whenever there is a curb or stopping point, like at stairs or an elevator, the groves change to round bumps. Pretty neat!

Anyways, we spent 5 hours in Harajuku and only went to the gyoza place, Kiddy Land, and two other shops! I could see us spending another day or two just in Harajuku, at least! On the way home we transferred trains in Shinjuku station. This station is huge and spread out- it seems like a mall mixed with a large two-terminal train station. On our way from one terminal to another we found dinner: C & C Curry! Its basically a fast food type place that just sells katsu curry. Its not high quality food but it is quick and very delicious. Honestly, at this rate Kris and I are going to bleed curry.

First day of Silver week went great and we're looking forward to the rest. Tomorrow we run to Ikea to buy more cheap clothes hangers, then we clean the house and just veg out. We've hardly spent an afternoon at home because we're always running around. Then Monday we head to Shibuya! Tuesday and Wednesday we'll head back to do whatever we missed out on so far.

Lastly, here's a picture of the Harajuku train station, so cute!

K+K