Ok so last week Wednesday I had decided to go into Tokyo because I don't have any classes on Wednesday nor do I do field placement (kind of like an internship via IES). A few other IES students also decided to come along, which was nice. Anyway, being my first time going into Tokyo I end up getting kind of lost in Tokyo station. (Note: kind of lost, which is different from lost)After getting off the train Ben (fellow IES-er) calls me and asks me where I am in Tokyo station so we can meet up while we wait for everyone else to arrive. I described where I was and....he had no idea where I was at...and to be fair I pretty much no clue as well. All I knew was that I had gotten off at Tokyo Station and walked out through the closest entrance, not actually leaving the building, but outside of the main terminal area. Ben ended up meeting with another IES-er and then we all commenced in an intense game of, Where the Heck is Keri Located. After a good 50 minutes or so Ben discovered where the Shin-Marunouchi (probably spelled this wrong) building was located (which is the building I was in). Turns out I had accidentally left the station and walked into this building which is connected to the station but located on the opposite side of the station from where my companions were. We later discovered that this happened because I had taken a subway line versus the JR lines.
Anyway we spent the day shopping and exploring in Shibuya and Harajuku.
In Shibuya we went to the store, Shibuya 109 which is a pretty famous store in Japan. All of the clothes were super cute かわいい but also very expensive たかい! So I window shopped.
Shibuya 109 looks like a giant tube of lipstick.
Harajuku
After Shibuya we hopped on the train to go to Harajuku. As it turns out Tokyo is a very strangely laid out city. It is pretty much impossible to walk from one district to the other due to the very strange street layout. Anyway, Harajuku was a lot of fun! There were a bunch of super cute stores and the prices were a lot happier!
Unfortunately since it was a weekday there weren't any Harajuku girls/cos-players but I did see one! I'm planning on going to Harajuku again on a Sunday so I can see the people all dressed up. I had a lot fun shopping around in Harajuku and ended up buying some cute stuff. Something interesting about shopping in Japan, when you go to use the fitting room it is customary to remove your footwear. I think this goes along with the whole uchi/soto concept I mentioned in a previous post. In some stores they offer you a special pair of slippers (or in some cases heels) to wear while in the fitting room. I've now learned to wear slip-ons whenever I might be trying on clothes, because I spent a WHOLE LOTTA time untying and retying my shoes. Something else I found very weird and at the time very very VERY irritating was that some shops won't let you try the clothes on. And I'm not talking about high end boutiques like Anna Sui or Prada. These are just your average shop with average quality clothing. It was very frustrating for me because there was a really cute shirt I wanted to try on but they told me, だめ。 At first I thought this was because I was going to try it on outside of the fitting room (not getting naked in the shop, but putting it over my own t-shirt) But it turned out that wasn't the case. They just have some strange policy that any clothing that is pull on cannot be tried on. Only zipper clothing it was okay. This incident really frustrated me because I really liked the shirt but didn't want to buy if I didn't know whether it would look good or not. Turned out another store down the street had the same shirt and I could try it on there. Turned out I liked it, but this store didn't have the color I wanted and HELL to the NOWAY was I going back to the dumb policy store, so I just ended up not getting the shirt.
After doing some light shopping in Harajuku we walked right up the hill to Meiji Shrine. It was a very beautiful shrine and it was hard to believe that about 90ft away was loud and crowded Harajuku.
This photo was taken by my friend Alex when he had gone to Harajuku on a weekend. Just to give everyone an idea of how crowded it can get.
Sorry not so many pictures, but you can check out my photo album on facebook which has more photos from my trip to Tokyo and more recent photos of what I have been up to.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=501333832&ref=ts#!/album.php?aid=2056366&id=1130550099
おやすみなさい！
ケリ
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