Harajuku
The Shinkansen took us to Shinagawa station. Shinagawa is a district in Southern Tokyo and almost a city in its own right. The area surrounding the sprawling station is home to a massive modern complex of hotels, shopping centres and offices. We stayed at the Strings Hotel, occupying the upper section of a huge tower block (Shinagawa East One Tower) just a couple of minutes’ walk from the station.
We weren’t too sure what to do with our limited time in Tokyo but Alex had told us we had to visit the district of Harajuku, although he didn’t exactly explain why. It was though bound to be something to do with young people’s culture or fashion or he wouldn’t have come across it.
We guessed he wanted us to do some shopping for him. So off to Harajuku we went. I worked out that Alex was interested in Takeshita Dori, the famous Goth fashion street, but we had some trouble finding it at first and found ourselves on Omote-Sando, a wide rather non-Goth shopping street. Lots of Western designer brands.
We liked the Goth kittens advertising h.Anarchyism for Plus, clearly a very popular brand in Japan.
Some of the shops were nice but nothing remarkably different from what you mind find in a major European city. While there though we did at least take the time to buy Alex a genuine Japanese Pikachu.
Eventually we managed to find our way to the famed Takeshita Dori, looking like a latter date Goth Carnaby Street, and duly bought Alex some fashionable gear.
COOL