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.. 
