Tokyo - Harajuku

On Friday evening Travis and I had put Sterls to bed early so we could sit in the hotel bar and plan out our week. There’s a lot going on in Tokyo and some choices had to be made. Bright and early on Saturday, we headed to Tsukiji Fish Market. On my last visit to Tokyo I was fortunate enough to witness the famous salmon auctions at that market, but late last year the “inner” market was moved to a new location more suitable for the commerce that needs to take place but is so regularly interrupted by gawking tourists. However the outer Tsukiji markets remain and so we wandered the ten minutes from our hotel to see what we could find for breakfast.

Turns out, quite a lot!

We ate grilled sea urchin with scallops cheese, skewered baby octopus, eel kebabs, steamed pork buns (irresistable) and drank a hot soup that was handed to us by the man we bought the eel from. It was all pretty tasty although the sea urchin was a bit chewy…

The Tsukiji markets are everything I hoped and expected. They were riotous, crowded, relatively cheap, photogenic and contained a variety of gastronomic options. We had a great time exploring the markets, trying to figure out what certain sea creatures were (or in some cases, whether they were actually just baked goods or something) and chatting to the other tourists we encountered who were debating whether or not to eat certain things (the answer is always to eat it, especially if you don’t know what it is).

After the fish market we headed to Harajuku mainly because it features in all the “top ten must see” lists and because I somewhat remembered it from last time. Or thought I did. I think my memory of the place might have been hazy because there is in fact not a great deal to see there. Nonetheless we wandered down Takeshita Dori (the main street), took photos of the random cuteness exploding all over the place, ate an enormous calorific crepe and then dropped into the Harry Hedgehog cafe to cuddle hedgehogs.

People, hedgehogs are adorable. Soft, squishy, balled-up little creatures with sweet little noses and pale pink little bellies, curling up into a ball to sleep on one’s hand or occasionally snuffling up your sleeve in case you bought some mealyworms and for some reason stored them in your clothes. The half-hour of time that you’re given flew by quite quickly. Of course, because I follow too many of National Geographic’s instagram posts to feel entirely comfortable with a cafe for petting animals, I had to google how well these animals are treated. The general consensus among the experts seem to be “it’s not ideal but we can’t poke any specific holes at the way most cafes manage their animals”. So that assuaged my guilt somewhat, if not entirely, and allowed me to enjoy myself.

After our sojourn with the hedgehogs and a singularly appalling coffee (the “cafe” part), we wandered through Yoyogi Park because it was there and we missed trees and large open spaces. Yoyogi Park is quite enormous and houses the Meiji Shrine which, in 1920, was completed as a shrine to the deified sprits of the former Emperor and Empress of Japan. In the late 20s part of the park served as an army parade ground and in the late 40s it became a military base for the occupying US trips. It was the site of the main Olympic Village in the 60s and then in 1967 it was finally turned into Yoyogi Park. It’s actually a beautiful space. We followed an absolute horde of people through the large entrance gates towards the Shrine (a place we hadn’t intended to visit but stumbled across anyway) and on the way we discovered what we assume was the reason for the large yet well-behaved crowd - an ice sculpture competition. The path was lined by incredibly intricate and large ice sculptures, some of which were melting and had lost forelegs or noses, or even just a bit of weight, but all of which were incredibly beautiful. 

The crowd itself was an interesting attraction. There was no sign of the ebullience you’d expect from that number of people. The numbers were huge but it felt almost like a sacred pilgrimage. It was orderly and quiet and everyone kept well to the sides of the very wide path. After admiring the many statues we arrived at the Shrine and were momentarily delayed by a procession of traditionally dressed and rather grave looking people. In the middle were the bride and groom - apparently up to 15 weddings occur there every day. We felt quite fortunate to see one as the bridal kimono was truly beautiful and the quiet (almost gloomy) procession of people fascinating, but equally I felt fortunate that our own wedding won’t involve a weirdly dour train of people ambling through a throng of curious strangers.

By this point of the day it was getting late and we were getting tired, so we turned our feet to our hotel and retired to our respective onsens (gender segregated public baths) on the second floor of our hotel for a long soak.