Another day of interesting sites in Tokyo. We crossed the famous Shibuya crossing – the world’s busiest crosswalk, with an average of 2.4 million people passing across it each day. Here’s our before and after:
It’s always fun to step off the subway in Tokyo as you never know what you’ll see when you pop out of the tunnels. One such area was the Harajuku district (google “Harajuku Girls” because the boys have been dying to find them). You can imagine their excitement as we wandered through this area…
We also got stopped here for another photo-op. Our collection of photos of random people is growing. Not that we really want them, but somehow I feel that if they ask for a photo of you, you should get a photo of them. Then you’re even and it’s less creepy?
And while we’re talking about all things colorful and flashy, we also wandered through Akihabara: the land of the gamers and anime fanatics. The streets are full of electronics, arcades, maid shops, and most importantly, ALL of the anime.
Maid shops, by the way, are cafes where the customers are served in a home-like environment where they are the Masters or Mistresses to their maid/butler. The servers dress up in maid costumes, sometimes with bunny ears for cute effect. Usually they offer just food and drink, but as the cafes have been becoming more popular, they are starting to offer photo sessions, hand/foot massages, or ear cleaning. We were initially very confused by this culture, and were concerned about all the “maids” roaming the streets…
We ended our day with a grill-it-yourself dinner. In true Japanese fashion, the portion sizes were tiny and we each nibbled on a piece of meat the size of our fingertips. No wonder everyone is so tiny!
