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Sunday, November 18, 2007

Tokyo Trip Day 4: 18 November 2007, Sunday.

We went Harajuku(原宿) in the late morning. We walked down Takeshita Street (竹下通り), where there were lots of teenage fashionable stuff! This can be likened to Singapore's Bugis Street. We did quite a bit of shopping here.

The Harajuku Station.

We actually took neoprints here! It was so cheap, at just Y300 (S$3.90)! There were special effects that I hadn't seen in Singapore, like having 1 single photo made up of 3 shots. I guessed we had lots of fun over here.

This is actually a carpark. There are lots of similar carparks in Japan, where you drive the car into the elevator, and it will be safely parked away, in a stacked-up manner. Land-scarce Singapore should adopt this, and problems of car theft or vandalism or cashcard thefts would be eliminated.

This is an arty-farty shop. Can't really recall if it's a design shop.

We missed the weekly cosplay parade every Sunday afternoon here at Harajuku, possibly during shopping, but luckily we caught enough of their cosplay fever the day before.

Outside the Meiji-jingu Shrine (明治神宮), there were people offering Free Hugs. So I offered myself too!

Sunset at Harajuku.

We took 2 stops to Shinjuku (新宿), which is the World's Busiest Station, and the World's 2nd Largest. It was unimaginably enormous with countless lines for different types of trains, including the Shinkansen, JR lines, subways and metros. The station is used by an average of 3.31 million people per day, and it has over 200 exits!!!

We exited from the west side, to reach the skyscrapers side of Shinjuku. Here, we went to the Tokyo Metropolitan Govt Bldg, where there's a free observatory at the 45th floor.

The city night view was mesmerizing and it really proves that Tokyo is a First-World, well-developed world-class city.

Tokyo Tower at a distance.

At the East-Shinjuku side, this is where the action lies. It is a stark contrast to the west-side, where office buildings clutter together.

We had a combo dinner set again, just Y580 (S$7.50). It was ordered by giving the cook a receipt that you've bought from the vending machine in the shop.

Shinjuku is really a place full of dizzying billboards and neon lights.

Kabukicho (歌舞伎町) is a thriving street, while the Golden Gai District (below) nearby has more than 200 pubs. This is the red-light district.

We also dropped by Takashimaya, where nice Xmas decorations were already up.

人生是黑白的.
10:54 PM <3

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