Kate’s Quests

We just keep going back. We walked the city for about six solid hours. But don’t worry, we ate plenty of things to help keep our strength up. First we rode into Shibuya station. There is a very popular meeting place right next to Hachiko the dog. If you’re interested, Google “dog in Shibuya” and read all about him. It’s really very cute. It’s absolute madness there though…especially on a Saturday afternoon. It’s a wonder how you can find anyone when the meeting place is filled with hundreds of people. I guess that’s why even five year old children have cell phones. It was the same way in Europe. I remember watching children in school lines marching down the street, each on their very one mobile. It was awesome.

Once you find your way out of the meeting place (it’s really just a big courtyard), you have to navigate through…about five million people all making their way across the street at the same time. I have no idea if there were actually that many people there…there may have been more, but it definitely felt like that many. Starving we headed toward a Hawaiian restaurant DJ had gone to in Hawaii. There are actually more of them in Japan than stateside. I had an avocado burger and fries and enjoyed every last bite. We then found Tower Records and if you know my husband then you know my pain. He is a music FREAK. And he can spend DAYS looking at each individual CD, examining it, admiring it, contemplating purchasing it…. I usually end up throwing a minor tantrum and demanding that he decide and let’s GO! Two hours and some minutes later (it was six stories) we finally left and headed to Harajuku. It was too late to see the girls all dressed, but we did see a few. If you don’t know what I’m talking about…Google them too.

Then we stumbled across the Meiji shrine. It’s absolutely enormous. Lots of forest in the middle of Tokyo is kind of amazing. As you’re leaving you feel like you’re out in the middle of nowhere, but…you’re not. It’s so interesting getting to see how traditional Japan blends so effortlessly into modern Japan. Several times we’ve been walking down a busy highway and are all of a sudden in the middle of a tranquil shrine surrounded by people praying. It’s so not in your face and not a big deal. I love it. I just looked up Shinto on Wikipedia and you totally need to check that out too. It’s very interesting. I had no idea. Again, the juxtaposition between tradition and modernity.