Meiji, Harajuku, Ikebukuro...hut! hut!

Our goal today was to head out to Meiji shrine, the largest most important Shinto shrine in the city (dedicated to the emperor Meiji and his wife), in the morning for a walk in the woods and a quick stop in the temple area, then stop in Harajuku at KiddyLand for Sumi to get her Hello Kitty fix, which is, ironically, essentially across the street from the shrine area, and maybe head up to Ikebukuro for some sukiyaki. That was the plan.

We got up and out at a good hour, and after a quick breakfast at Andersen Bakery (a Dutch bakery chain in Japan) in Ueno station, we took the train to Meiji. Even in the "dead" of winter, it is still green and beautiful. It was also surprisingly busy.

sun-dappled entrance gate

The lanterns with blue writing are all ads. They are purchased by the sponsors of whatever matsuri(festival) is going on

It turns out it was busy because there was an event going on. What event, we're not sure, but we were very lucky to get out early on a Saturday morning. There was a large display of ice sculptures in the middle of the temple grounds!

Even as early as we were, it was over 40 and the sculptures were just beginning to melt, especially those catching the sunlight. They were quite detailed and the themes varied from Buddhist statues to mermaids to centaurs to fish. Quite a pleasant surprise!

The temple was also very crowded. Apparently there was some important ceremony happening today because there was a lot of security, which there never is normally, and lots of expensive cars kept coming and going. This is place where important national figures get married and such, so it was probably something along those lines. There were also a lot of late O-Shougatsu visitors, making their first visit to a shrine a few weeks after New Years.

Last gate heading into the shrine. The hangings at the top resemble a huge dart set. The hangings to the left and right of the entrance are large versions of Ema (wooden plaques) that visitors write their wishes for the new year on.

I love the architecture of these shrines

Visitors filling out their more normal-sized ema

And of course buying Omikuji (fortunes)

Sake in rice barrels offered to the temple.

And wine casks on the other side. It's good to be a Shinto shrine!

After buying some of our favorite sesame sweets at the gift shop (they are only sold here at Meiji), we headed across the street to Harajuku, home of teen and pre-teen fashion in Tokyo. Also home to some of the best store names in the city. Unfortunately, the one store we were searching for, Kiddy Land, is moving to a larger space in Harajuku, and was closed until the summer. Ah, well. No Hello Kitty for Sumi. We did find some cool stores, though.

The store is called "Harajuku Chicago Thrift Stoar" (yes, they have it misspelled in neon). They must have been to a section of Chicago I've never seen, with whales and palm trees.

Beauty Food for Urban Sweety...of course

AND fun....it is seriously a condom and sweets shop...with wireless internet...

We circled around the back of Harajuku mostly for a walk, and ran across a museum we hadn't heard of before

Ukiyo-e Ota Memorial Museum of Art

It was a small museum filled with Ukiyo-e, a popular form of art from the Edo period, usually depicting landscapes, scenes from kabuki or literature or history or pleasure quarters of the time. I personally like them for the details of Edo lifestyle they show. No pictures, as usual, but it was our second pleasant surprise of the day. Very well done with many good pieces.

A little further on, we encountered a tiny street that would not have been out of place in Europe, filled with hair salons of all kinds. A hair salon shopping district, if you will. We didn't see pricing, but I'm willing to bet a trim would run you $75 easy, judging from the decor.

When was the last time you saw something advertising "No Women"? And check out the hairstyle on the guy...

Heading back to the station, after a few more interesting signs, we took the train back to Ikebukuro and to Sunshine City for some good sukiyaki at a bargain price (still $10 for a full meal!)

They really do know how to market this dreck, don't they?

Takeshita St. - The gateway to some of the most questionable fashion in the world

After a closer inspection, it's a PSA for intestinal cancer screening

sukiyaki lunch set!

While in the mall, we saw people setting up for a performance. Apparently another idol group, 9Nine, will be performing at 2:30! Oh joy! Checking our phone, we see there's thirty minutes before their show, so we decide to take in the whole Ikebukuro experience, and set out for some crepes before the free "concert"

The Japanese know how to do crepes. Chocolate, banana, custard, whipped cream and ice cream.

I'll leave you with a little clip from the concert that we weren't supposed to film, but everyone was filming anyway. I actually had a guy come up and ask me to stop filming. It was rather ironic, as 1) I was just taking pictures, not filming, which we were allowed to do, though it wasn't worth arguing, especially because I was done and 2) EVERYONE was filming with their iPhones, but since they didn't look like video cameras, they were being ignored. Sumi was right next to me filming and they said nothing to her :) They are, in my opinion after seeing about three minutes of their show, far better than AKB48 in terms of choreography and performance. Which, by the Inverse Talent Success Music Performance Metric, means they will never be as popular. The crowd was pretty into it, though.