Monday, April 07, 2014

Sunday 6th April- Harajuku, Meiji Shrine and Yoyogi Park



After a late night the previous evening we decided to be a little later getting up this morning before heading of by bus to Shinjuku Station and then Yamonote Line to the young people’s area of Tokyo called Harajuku.
Here the young, including us, hang out and walk around the  many shops selling all sorts of clothing from high fashion to the cheap stuff whilst stuffing themselves on ice cream and many other weight gaining pleasures. We walked around this part of town for a couple of hours absorbing culture and noise before heading over to the Mejei Shrine. We arrived at the entrance and there was a show going on with drummers and dancers which we watched for about 15 minutes then headed in to the very busy park. We started walking to the shrine but it started to rain quite heavily so we diverted to the loos and restaurant and enjoyed an excellent beef noodle soup. The rain had eased  little and we walked past this huge array of French wine barrels which had been placed there some years as part of an offering from the French to the Meiji shrine staff, not sure if the casks still have wine in but doubt it.
From there we headed in to the Yoyogi Park area and watched the rock’ an’ roll male dancers doing their thing for a while then continued in to the park where many Japanese were enjoying the day under the apple blossom. They bring a large groundsheet then sit on it and eat and drink the day away together with Karaoke and finally they fold up the groundsheet with all the leftovers in it and hand to the park attendants. All very well organised.

Then back on the train to the Hotel after having walked at least five or six miles and our feet were aching but still we stopped in the supermarket for some chicken breasts, potatoes and veggies and a bottle of Bordeaux wine and then headed to the room for dinner. We tried to see if the Bahrain F1 GP would be on and it was but at midnight Tokyo time so we forgot that. Noel did some sorting of photos and some blogging and thence to bed and were both very tired..