If you thought Orchard Road on a weekend was crazy...

[Sunday, 05March, 1830hrs Tokyo]

...wait til you meet the Shibuya Crossroad on a weekday.

We started the day early and groggy, 3 of them having consumed enough alcohol to ensure a good sleep - or maybe not (*naughty). It was going to be a long walk into Meiji Shrine. The cold, the granite chips crunching beneath our feet, the promise of a really warm and slurpy bowl of ramen afterwards. The day before, as the train trudged to our destination, I had asked our only male travel companion what he thought of Tokyo. "Not a very good first impression. It's all grey and brown and lifeless." Wait til I bring you to town, I said.

I expected a wedding ceremony at Meiji Jingu and we weren't disappointed. In fact, The Yakult Swallows were there to offer prayers before their game that evening. With the 3 of them acting like the paparazzo chasing after the wedding couple (never seen Japanese wedding before), most of the morning energy was spent walking back out to Harajuku. Sadly, only 1 bunch of cosplayers were seated out the shrine that day. Probably the cold kept the rest away. Well, that wasn't the only thing Harajuku had to offer.

Of course we spent most of our time at Takeshitadori, but strangely enough, shopping for clothes isn't an objective for me to visit Tokyo. Clothes there are gorgeous but expensive and way too fashionable for the mass market streets of SG. Somehow wearing the stuff I buy there back in SG makes me stand out too much, and standing out too much in SG is not a good thing.

I had discovered a shortcut to Shibuya. So we walked there. You would expect us girls to spend the rest of our budget on shopping here, but actually, we ended up in a cafe. Strawberries were in season, so strawberries were found everywhere - In cakes, on pancakes, on a stick, even in the Anmitsu I ordered. That was our first sinful tea break that preceded many others on our trip there.


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