18th. My plan for today was to get up early, get out early and see more of Tokyo. I woke up early…
I eventually got out of bed around 11am and was out of the apartment by 12pm. Which, is actually the earliest I’ve been out since I got here, so I didn’t do too bad, really. The first stop today – Harajuku Station, to check out the Meiji Shrine and also the Harajuku area in general.
For the Shrine, I kind of expected the same kind of deal as the Senso-ji Temple, just kind off of to the side, amongst more modern buildings, but it was actually set deep into a wooded area. It was a nice walk, and once in there, you definitely didn’t feel like you were in the middle of Tokyo.
I don’t know if it was because it was a weekend or not, but there seemed to be a lot more people at Meiji than were at Senso-ji, though Meiji did have a calmer feel to it, despite the amount of people milling around.
There were prayer things you could buy for around 500 yen, that you wrote your wish/prayer/whatever on and hung it up on a board. I read through some of them, and they’re nice, but I always feel with that kind of thing, that I don’t believe in any of it, so why take part in it? It was the same at Senso-ji. People were lighting incense and stuff, as part of whatever ritual was going on, but to take part in it all feels disingenuous.
I’m happy to observe.
From the shrine, I headed back out of the woods and across to Takeshita Street, a famous street in Harajuku. It was packed and everyone was moving so slowly. It was awful. I did get a crepe though, so not all was lost.
I had planned, after Harajuku to go to Akihabara, but I forgot about that and ended up in Shinjuku instead. Mostly, because I had the image of the Godzilla statue in my head and knew it was there. It took a bit of searching, but I eventually found it.
Was it worth the search? Probably not. But cool to say I’ve seen it all the same.
By this point, it was around 4pm, my eyes were sore and I had a headache coming on. So I decided to head back to the airbnb for a bit, with the idea that I might venture back out to Akihabara. Ultimately though, I opted to just stay in. Took a couple ibuprofen and chilled.
Tomorrow’s plan – Akihabara.