Tokyo, Day 9 – Meiji Shrine, Shibuya and Tokyo Tower

The day after Disney we wanted to have a bit more of a quiet day, but of course we ended up doing a lot of things again. ^^
We woke up, got dressed and had breakfast in the restaurant downstairs (I believe). My dad suggested to walk from the hotel to Yoyogi park, which wasn’t very far away, and visit Meiji Shrine. We also planned to do some shopping already. You see, since we only had this day and the next day left in Tokyo, we wanted to make sure we could buy everything we wanted to buy but hadn’t bought yet. We decided to do the real shopping on Wednesday and some small shopping on Tuesday, but I can tell you already: our plans changed a little. XD
So after breakfast, we headed to Yoyogi park (we forgot to take outfit pictures, can you believe it?). The weather was a bit gray, but it was still nice and warm. We passed the 7-eleven shop, where we got some money and I bought some delicious Pocky! Yoyogi park wasn’t very far and the walk was really nice. It was pretty quiet in the streets, I guess we were in a bit of an empty part of Shinjuku.
Suddenly, I saw a lot of trees and understood we were at the park already. After trying to read another difficult map, we decided to just follow the path that went underneath the gate.

The gate to the park. I wore my multifunctional skirt/dress again.
The park was really quiet and peaceful. It was as if the whole city didn’t even exist for a little while. I really liked the walk.
After following some signs we ended up at another gate with a small open house next to it. It had a small waterfountain with wooden spoons, but to be honest: I didn’t want to touch them. I was afraid I would accidentally do something that would be viewed upon as really disrespectful, since I didn’t know the way to use them. We passed the gate and ended up on a big square with a little shop to the left and lots of old buildings.

The waterfountain-like tank. The sound of the water was really calming.
In the shop they sold all kinds of charms for different occasions, like good luck and safe travel. The shopladies wore really beautiful white blouses with bright orange/red skirts, very traditional. We crossed the square and walked through another gate, after which we arrived at another square with more gates and buildings. Explaining everything is rather hard, since a lot of things looked alike.

I really liked the architecture.
There were quite some people walking around. Some were writing messages or prayers and put them on a special wall that was built around a big tree. Others were praying in the direction of a building that you couldn’t reach because of some fences.

A woman wearing the traditional clothing. You can see people behind
her praying to the building.
We didn’t spend much time at the shrine, altough it was a very beautiful place. We saw a couple with their little daugther, who wore a really beautiful and colorful traditional outfit. She was so cute!
Both my dad and I bought a charm at another shop. I bought one that looks like a little red Dorothy bag (I learned a new word just now, haha).
We passed some more (huge) gates while continuing our way through the park. Funny thing: we saw an old man in a uniform raking the small stones of the paths. It seemed like such a useless job somehow. XD We also passed a wall of colourfully painted barrels.

I was so goofing around here! XD
We just kept walking and ended up on a small bridge I had seen on many other pictures, so of course a picture was obligatory.

My dad on the nameless famous bridge.
After walking some more we finally passed the last large gate, after which we found ourselves on a very familiar-looking place. It was Harajuku bridge!
Now, I must tell you: whenever I saw pictures of Harajuku bridge, it always seemed pretty big to me. I imagined a huge bridge that was filled with colourfully dressed people on Sundays. Yet the bridge turned out to be way smaller than I thought!

Welcome to Harajuku bridge. I am still surprised by how much smaller it was than I thought.
After taking some pictures of the bridge, Yoyogi Stadium and Harajuku station, we decided to do Harajuku the next day and go to Shibuya again, since we had only seen it by night and not in daylight. So we bought tickets at the station and went on our way to Shibuya, which wasn’t very far away (we could have walked it if we had wanted to).
We arrived at Shibuya quickly and we walked out of the metrostation. Shibuya was of course the same as a couple of days ago, but also really different! The sun had started to shine, which made everything even more beautiful.

Shibuya by day.
We walked up to Hachiko’s statue to take some more pictures. Of course, there were people hanging around it hanging, but this time there weren’t so many people.

Hachiko was wearing a fancy sash! No idea why though.

We also saw a metrowagon standing in front of the station. I’m still not sure whether it was just for decoration or maybe a meeting point.
We decided to croos the big crossing again and do something I never thought I would do in my entire life: buying coffe at Starbucks. I don’t have anything against Starbucks, it’s just that I’m not a coffee person. But since this Starbucks had the best view on the crossing, we decided to buy something. My dad ordered regular black coffee, while I chose Dark Mocha Chip Frappuccino Blended something (Cream or Coffee). We walked up the stairs and took seats right under the ‘C’ from ‘Starbucks’. We had a really great view and we spend a while just looking at the people walking. My drink was nice, after I figured out how I liked it (wait for the ice to melt, then it tasted like chocolate milk). I took one of my best pictures there.

We spent such a nice, relaxing moment here.
While we were enjoying our drinks, my dad noticed something going on downstairs. It turned out some people were doing a photoshoot. The female model was posing in front of the crossing. The funny things was that apperently the photographer thought there weren’t enough people passing the model, so a few crewmembers kept on walking circles around here in order to create the idea of a crowd. It was really fascinating to look at.
I saw a lot of people wearing great outfits, including a girl wearing a long yellow dress with an orange border and lots of flowers on her head. It’s funny how she met up with two interestingly dressed girls I had seen standing against a wall. They totally suited each other!
We finished our drinks and left our stools, after which a punkish-looking girl almost jumped on my seat, while I was just leaving it, so she bumped into me. It was one of the few (maybe the only one) moments I thought a person was rude.
We left the Starbucks via a media store that sold a lot of dvds and cds. My father loved how some bandnames were just ridiculous. ‘Bump of Chicken’, anyone?
We got out at the place where we had seen the photoshoot and we they were still taking pictures, but the model had changed outfits and they were now walking on the crossing itself. We decided to take some pictures ourselves too, so I crossed the street while the photographer was still taking pictures of the model. Maybe I’m on of the pictures now? Who knows…

Modelling in Shibuya. It seemed like a lot of fun to me!
I walked the crossing two times more and my dad took pictures. After that, we went on our way to search the shop ‘HMV’, for my dad. We had seen it on a billboard on a picture of Shibuya, but unfortunetaly the billboard was gone and replaced by a ‘Forever21’-one. So we went looking for it, but unfortunetaly we couldn’t find it. We did see a bit more of Shibuya’s streets and we walked through the ‘Spain Slope’, a small pedestrian street with cute shops that ressembles those small Spanish streets.

The Spanish Slope. It was my dad who pointed it out: I didn’t even know about its
existence, even though I could have read about it in my own folder.
The Slope had some really great shops, including one where they sold the cutest underwear! I also saw a shop that sold ear piercers: little machines that allow you to pierce your own ears (or nose, or whatever).
After the slope, we bumped into a Disney Store! Of course, after a whole day of Disney we hadn’t had enough, so we went into the shop for a while.

Disney Stores: cute wherever you go.
We also saw a telephone booth that quite ressembled the typical English one. I went inside and pretended to be calling someone (picture again, haha), but the booth smelled quite badly, so I left quickly. Even though we didn’t find HMV, we did find Tower Records, which my dad wanted to visit too. First we went into MaruiCity, since I had to go to the toilet (the toilets were incredibly fancy). The floor we crossed had some really nice shops, although I can’t remember what they sold! Something with really cool, but expensive bags…
Anyway, after my toiletvisit (hehe) we crossed the street and went into Tower Records, where we spend quite some time.

Tower Records, one of the shops I would never have visited if it wasn’t for my father.
I’m really glad we did though!
I think we browsed almost every floor! I listen to Kyary’s Pon Pon Wei on an actual CD and a couple of other cds, including Glee3D live (I’m not a Glee fan, but I was curious) and some Japanese artists. Sometimes I couldn’t find my dad, because I was browsing cds in hidden corners. In the end, he finally bought things (I believe that up until this point, he hadn’t bought anything except for a present at Disneyland): two cds from Earth, Wind and Fire. At the checkout he also discovered a magazine about them that he really liked, even though he couldn’t read it. I bought a dvd from Sound Horizon and at the checkout I also discovered a magazinge: the newest Gothic & Lolita Bible, which I had to buy of course.
After a long time we left the shop again and I could finally take a picture of my dad with his purchases.

Yaaay!
We walked back to the Shibuya crossing while the sun was already slowly setting. Suddenly my dad suggested to go to Tokyo Tower, since we wanted to visit it while it was dark outside so we could see the city by night. Since the sun was already setting this was a great idea, so we went on our way to the subwaystation.

Shibuya in the afternoon.
We took the metro (we sat in the front train, we could see the driver) up to Tokyo Tower. On the way we bought a bottle of water and I had a can of chocolate. ^^ Just like in Paris, there is no station that’s really close to the Tower, so when we got out we had to walk for a while. It wasn’t so bad, since we had a nice view.

Tokyo Tower, the wellknown landmark of Tokyo.
Although Tokyo Tower is clearly based on the Eiffeltower, there are some differences. Beside its red and white colours, it also has an elevator in the middle and not in the pillars and it has a big building below it instead of a square. I liked these differences: it makes them both a little more unique in a way.
At the foot of one of the pillars, there was a little artwork with a couple of Shiba Inus made of stone. It was really cute! ^^ They really Shibas here. At the foot of one of the other pillars stood a couple of benches, probably for groups of people to take pictures.

Goofing around again. Just look at my face. XD
We bought two tickets to the top at the office, after which we immediately took the elevator up (of course after some bowing of the staff) to the first floor. The view was absolutely amazing. We could see so many buildings, including the ones from Shinjuku we saw every morning out of our hotel window! We could also see the new Sky Tree.

Don’t you just love the view?
We walked around the floor and then walked up the stair to the elevator to the top. We had to wait for a short while and then were allowed into the elevator with some more people.
Of course the view from the top was even greater! We could see so far away! We could even see Odaiba and the Rainbow Bridge so clearly! It was really fantastic.

Roppongi Hills to the left, Shinjuku to the right.
We also met a nice guy from Chile. He asked us to take a picture of him with his camera and we started talking for a bit. He was really nice!

I kept taking pictures of this street, I loved it so much!
After a while we took the elevator down again and snapped some more pictures of the city. This was the only time I was really annoyed by children: apparently there was some kind of schooltrip happening and a bunch of children were running around screaming. Oh well, I tried to ignore them.

This pink Tokyo Tower was slowly spinning around. It was so glittery~!
It started to get darker and we tried to take some pictures of the city, but as we forgot our tripod it was really difficult.

I’m glad this picture came out pretty well. ^^
There was also a place where you could look through a part of glass floor. Even though I thought it was scary, I still tried standing on it and it wasn’t so bad after all!
Eventually, we decided to take the elevator down again.

I like this picture, even though it came out blurry.
When we got down again, we browsed a souvenirshop for a short while. I still want a little something from Tokyo Tower, so I bought a glass key chain with the Tower lasered into it.
When we got outside, the sky was completely dark and the Tokyo Tower was beautifully lighted in orange.

Tokyo Tower by night. I love how different it looks from every angle.
We walked to a different metrostation this time. I saw a woman walking her dog and you can guess what kind of breed it was: Shiba Inu, indeed. ^^
We took the metro to Shinjuku Station and we decided to leave the station at MyLord again to have dinner. While looking at the fake food we didn’t really know what to choose. After some pondering we decided to go eat at ‘Platinum Buffet’, a fancy-looking restaurant with a buffet (the chocolate fountain totally convinced me), which resulted into us eating all kinds of different things, like spaghetti, pizza, rice, broccoli and some fried things. And of course some delicious dessert. ^^

Chocolate fountains always easily convince me. And I mean, just look at this dessert!
There was a big group of girls sitting on another table making a lot of noise. It seemed that on this day people were more loud than other days, I swear! XD
We went back to our hotel, where we arrived at about 7:50 pm. Since we hadn’t taken any pictures in the morning, we decided to do it now.

I put that magazine on the floor so you wouldn’t see it in the picture. I failed
miserably as you can see. XD
We went upstairs, rested for a while, I sent pictures to my mom, we talked to her on Skype and went to sleep after that. The next day would be a day filled with shopping, so we needed our rest.
I apologize for the mistakes. I will correct them as soon as I can~!