Saturday fun with A

(The posting time is not accurate form some reason... Remove 8 hours from what is written.)
20/9

On Saturday, I was woken up by A ringing on my door at 12:30. 12:30!! I had set the alarm clock to 10 or 11, but I must have shut it down and then gone back to sleep... Good thing A woke me up so we could actually go do something fun on our free day. But man was I still sleepy...

We decided to check some areas out and settled for Harajuku, one of the trendiest places in Tokyo, packed with fashionable teens and 20-somethings any time of the day. Going there makes me feel kind of... worn out, as far as clothing and styles go. But it's not that bad.

There's this one main street in Harajuku, Takeshita-doori, which is filled with accessory shops, gift shops and the like. This is where everyone goes. Now here's me looking terribly awkward by the entrance:

Just look at the crowd! It's like... one massive clump of people jammed together on this narrow little street. A living life form of its own. Oh, and look at the two girls in the front, they look almost exactly the same!

We stopped by an accessory shop (do I need to say that it had lots of bling bling and pink cute stuff? You'd love it Waya!) and got some goods. Everytime we exit a shop and stepped outside, I was shocked by the heat that rushed towards us, slapping a reminder in our face. You forget it easily when you go inside a store, welcomed by the soothing air conditioner blowing pleasant chilly winds. Mmm... I hope Tokyo gets colder soon. Anyway, next, we moved on to this huge 100円 shop (actually it's 105円 nowadays) and browsed through shelf after shelf storing things of all kinds. Fancy a face-roll massager, anyone? So we spent a lot of time there but I didn't get anything. I'm a bit worried about not having enough space in my baggage so I'm putting restrictions on myself for now. ^^;

And now, the highlight of our day! Harajuku's famous crepes! They come in all kinds of flavours, but I'm a chocolate girl so of course I went for something chocolatey. It was so good! I strongly recommend everyone to have Tokyo crepes at least 100 times before you leave, seriously!

Yummy.

Because we got out late (at around 14:00), the sun was already on its way down when we were finished with our crepes. We checked a couple of more stores out and I have now come to the conclusion that clothes needn't be that expensive in Tokyo (if you aren't going to 109 in Shibuya or Ginza). There's a lot of cheaper alternatives in Harajuku, so I really want to go there again soon to buy new outfits. Need to satisfy my materialistic needs...

So A and I strolled around the area some more, and we walked aaall the way to Shibuya (we saw a sign pointing there, so hey, why not!). I dragged her into Tower Records (CD, DVD, books galore) and I found lots of albums and singles that I wanted to get my hands on. I didn't get anything then though, I'm thinking of writing a list of everything I want first and then check out the store combing through every shelf later, har har har!

By the way, on our way to Shibuya, we found these food stands:

Traditional Japanese style! Seems kinda out of place though.

We got down to have a look, but no one was eating there and it looked sort of shabby, so we skipped it. Instead, we ate at a place that served... Hm, food. Like, normal, husmanskostaktig food. And it was good! They had an interesting layout at the place. There's one long table placed in the middle of the room, stretching from one end to another. So people sit beside eachother when they eat, and the opposite side is separated by a board so you don't have to face strangers. Pretty cool! I had some kind of "healthy chicken" (it was fried XD) with sauce. It was a 定食menu, meaning that you get miso, rice, and side dishes aside from the main dish that you've ordered. And because I know you're all curious about what I eat (at least mom and dad!), I took a picture for you!

The pink thing you see to the left is supposedly ginger. I didn't try it. ^^; Oh! And there was a slice of peach too. That felt really out of place but was actually quite refreshing.

Me and A had walked around a lot before we settled on that place, strange thing is that we didn't see the famous crossing or the 109-building even once on our almost 1 hour restaurant search. Hmm... I guess we got into some weird circle cast with a magic spell so we couldn't get out. On our way to the Shibuya station, A taught me a useful trick. To find the station in the easiest possible way, go down the slopes. The Shibuya area is actually pretty hilly, so if you head down, you'll definitely find the station.

This is it for Saturday. Today I went to a festival (matsuri) in Nezu. The rain was pouring down and my white shoes now have brown spots all over them. More about the festivities tomorrow! And the earthquake! (Cliffhanger!)

Rain, rain, rain.