Tokyo Journal: Harajuku
Today was all about wandering the streets of Harajuku. And today was the day that I realized my guidebook was woefully out of date. :(
See, the guidebook said that there was an awesome antiques fair/bazaar at Togo Jinja, the shrine to the Japanese admiral Togo. So it sounded cool and I figured since I would be in Harajuku that I could go looking at the shops and also go see Meiji Jingu the enormous Shinto temple to the emperor Meiji and his consort, the Empress Shoken. So, Harajuku had a lot of points going for it.
I figured that since this was going to be a day full of parks that I would get some lunch box supplies and be prepared for it. So I bought my apple tea at the hostel (cheapest place to get it) and swung by 7-11 on my way to the Tokyo Metro. I grabbed a box of chicken, a box of egg (sweet omelette style tamago), what looked like a fried rice onigiri and a nikuman. Onigiri was the hardest selection. See they're all wrapped in nori so unless you can actually read what it says on the label you're playing lunch roulette. I mean it couldn't be completely bizarre but they all have different flavors. I did myself a favor and got one of the round ones where you could see what it looked like on either end. This morning's selection at 7-11 was pretty varied, but still it's 7-11.
Thank you Sean for throwing me into getting a Suica card! Suica is the smart pass that you can just slam your wallet on the rail gates and just roll on through. It makes the whole travel experience a hell of a lot easier. You don't have to pay for individual tickets, or deal with grabbing the little tiny tickets, and paying exactly the right amount to get where you need to go. Just pay in advance and get on with life. I don't know why I didn't think of it before. Well, I didn't think of it before because I didn't know it existed. So today I just had to figure out what the best route would be to get to there. (Ginza line to Chiyoda line and out at Meiji-Jingumae). Being at the end of the line kind of has its perks, dozing off on the way home, but it makes for long ass trips.
So, I got out at Meiji-Jingumae and started wandering around looking for Togo-Jinja. Again the maps, copious as they are, were practically useless. I couldn't for the life of me figure out what street I was on or where I was going. And the signs are even also printed in Romaji, so it shouldn't have been so damned difficult. But I have no sense of spatial orientation, so I'm constantly getting lost. I stopped and asked a nice lady: "Togo-Jinja doko des-ka?" She was clueless, but I showed her my map and we both took an educated guess. I even stopped at a third map next to the police station, but even that was no help. But I found a Torii gate and figured that this was probably as decent a guess as any.
At first I thought it was not really a shrine, and that it was some kind of private property. There was a red carpet out all along this pond and up into what turned out to actually be the shrine. There were tons of people wandering around in very formal attire, and a photographer was preparing to take photos. So I was really just kind of skirting around the inside of the temple grounds. A woman came up to me and she said there was a wedding going on. I thought that this must be very special and I didn't want to disturb anything but she said to go ahead and go take a look. I did and got a very nasty look from a man in a bright orange kimono who was staring at me. So I walked away very quickly. So I was standing there thinking to myself, this is really cool, but what about the antique fair from the guidebook? Well, a tiny sign next to the booth where they sell little lucky charms said that they had closed down the fair last year and that they had no plans to restart it in the future. Screw you lonely planet!
Well, why not go do the Harjuku shopping thing, right? Sure. So I went and walked down Takeshita-dori. It was a crammed alley full of fancy shops for young people. I mean, it's just like any upscale mall. They even had a Claire's. I went through a few shops. Richard's was your basic Gothic-Lolita shop. They had a very rude sign that said "Don't take any pictures! Fuck you!" Which was unfortunate. Richard's is where you get your frilly tiny goth hats. It was adorable. I also went wandering into some awesome little handbag shops. But they were all like Ben Sherman bags with union jacks on them. I also went to a hip-hop clothing store, the guy said "hey where you from?" "Washington, DC" so he showed me a Nationals baseball hat. "Dude, I could buy that at home!" And we laughed. But that was just the thing. There were so many things but they were all imports to Japan. Vivienne Westwood, Ben Sherman, etc. There were a few shops that had some original Japanese designs but they were all those tight shirts for thin guys with lots of chains and crosses dangling at interesting angles. I wasn't about to shell out massive Yen for stuff that I could buy at home.
The other thing that was weird about Takeshita-dori was the number of Nigerians. They all had hip-hop shops selling the exact same thing and if they saw that you were gaijin they would literally grab you and take you to their shop. It was the most harassing shop keep behavior I have ever dealt with. It was seriously creepy.
Well I had had enough of that and figured I would try and find out where Meiji-Jingu was. It was enormous so I shouldn't in theory be able to miss it. Takeshita-dori was supposed to dead end at the park so I just had to follow the edge of the park to get there. Along the way I ran into the gelato shop and said fuck it. Why not! It was called GROM and I got this blend of hazelnut and some vanilla/chocolate chip flavor. It was awesome and I made sure to tell them. Oishi katta!
I finally found the entrance to the park and began the long slow journey to Meiji-Jingu. Going to many of the other shrines I've been to on this trip has been basically walking in to something casual in progress. Senso-Ji was enormous, but it was a part of people's every day lives. They were walking through the park on the way from here to there and stopping by to honor the spirits there, pray for a minute and move on with life. Togo Jinja was the same, it looked like a residence and there was a wedding in progress. I basically just stumbled upon it not realizing it was actually a shrine.
Meiji-Jingu is nothing at all like that. This is an experience, a pilgrimage. Going to Meiji-Jingu is an intentional act, and not something that you do just casually going between here and there. There is only one entrance and one exit to get into and out of the temple complex, and it is long. You pass through three Torii gates and then through one of three separate entrance ways to get to the shrine courtyard. The shrine itself is not the massively enormous style of Senso-Ji, but the length and breadth of the experience makes up for the simplicity of what you find at the main hall. There are still some wonderful architectural features, but all of it in simple wood tones, white paint and elaborate metal work.
While at Meiji-Jingu I ran into another TWO weddings in progress! It was amazing. This time I got to see the final processions as they left the main hall and posed for pictures. While I had the gall to take their picture as they were processing, at least I didn't do it while they were posing for their official photos. And no dirty looks from the wedding party. Mostly because there were dozens of other people there doing the same thing I was.
Each shrine seems to have their own little fortune type deal. At Meiji-Jingu the thing is pull a poem by the Emperor or the Empress. I pulled a nice one.
After pulling my poem I decided to take the garden tour and go see the famous well. Honestly I think it was the worst time of the year to go see this garden. The flowers had only just begun to come up out of the ground. I mean, they're Irises so of course they're not going to be in full bloom just yet. And most of the garden was still a little brown from winter, and spring has gotten off to a cold start. So things were not quite at the state of beauty that they will probably be in the summer. I bet it's amazing in July. The well was interesting, but mostly because it was so low to the ground and constantly flowing. There was a crazy long line to get into the well area, so I had to wait for like 15 minutes to take a picture.
Perhaps the weirdest thing at Meiji-Jingu were the hundred some casks of French wine. Apparently the Meiji emperor wanted this shrine to be a testament to the best of both eastern and western culture so all of these casks of elegant French wines were acquired to be part of the dedication ceremony of the temple. All of them have a bronze plaque indicating the winery and their provenance. It was kind of spectacular.
By the time I had walked the entire length of the temple grounds and the garden I was exhausted, so I figured the best thing to do would be to get on the train and head back to Asakusa. It wasn't until I paid to get back on the train that I remembered that the NHK building is in Harajuku, just down from the park at Meiji-Jingumae. Oh well, It was Sunday anyway so I wouldn't have expected to see much. So I'll give that a go on another day. Gotta find me some official NHK Domo-Kun!
I got back to Asakusa and wandered around the Kaminarimon for a little while. And then I headed over to McDonald's. Now, I know what you're thinking. Silly american, going to McDonald's on a vacation to a foreign country. But no, it's not cause I was jonesing for a Big Mac. No, it was because McDonald's Japan re-released the Idaho Burger as the finale to the "Big America" series that they ran earlier in the year. Idaho burger was the most popular theme burger from the series so they brought it back for a limited time, and that time included today. So I decided I had to try this thing.
Hell yes! This was a great burger, for a number of reasons. One, it has an entire fried hash brown on it; Two, it has this sweet onion sauce on the bottom; three, horseradish mayonnaise on top! It was fucking delicious.
And with that I'm going to go head back to the bar and claim my other free drinks.