Monday, the 19th of October, was our first full day in Tokyo and we had planned to go to Harajuku! First, we had breakfast in the hotel restaurant and what a breakfast it was… We have stayed in this hotel several times before and were familiar with the breakfast, however they made some changes and additions like pancakes and profiteroles. It was amazing. ;_; ♥
We finished our breakfast and went upstairs to get ready. Since I was going to wear Lolita that day, I needed quite a bit of time to prepare, but since most shop don’t open before 11 am it was fine.
I had planned to wear my Wonder Cookie jumperskirt, that I had actually bought in Harajuku during our previous trip! It was almost like taking it home, haha. XD I had decided on a fairly simple outfit: white and pink combined and with a maid-like headdress. It was simple, but cute. ^^
When I was done, we went on our way to Harajuku!
We left the hotel and went to the post office to get money. Then we headed to the station. It was a bright and sunny day with a lovely blue sky. At our side of Shinjuku station some constructions were going on, but Japan wouldn’t be Japan without some adorable Hello Kitty road barriers!
Since our Japan Rail Passes were usable until Tuesday we could walk past the JR desk and take the train for free. We walked to the right platform and waited for the next train.
The train soon arrived. We only had to travel two stations, so we quickly arrived at Harajuku station. I know it would have been more convenient to get out at the Takeshita dori exit, however I just really love the old look of Harajuku station from the outside, so we took the other exit instead. A lot of people exited the train together with us, but they walked faster than us so soon it was quiet again. I also spotted a poster for the new Attack on Titan live action movie.
We exited the building and crossed the street. The station looked so lovely in the sun!
We followed the sidewalk to the entrance of Takeshita dori, We passed several shops, including one that sold the most varying kind of t-shirts. Most of them were cute and colourful, but some actually had sad drawings on them. x)
Finally, we arrived at the entrance of Takeshita dori! *angels singing*
My mom and I were both very excited to be there. We had been looking forward for months to go shopping Harajuku and we were both hoping to find nice things. The screen on the balloon sign changes design often and sometimes it also films the people passing by. After a while, we spotted ourselves and we couldn’t help but take a picture of it.
Then it was time to start our intense shopping day!
Because we have been to Harajuku several times before, we knew a lot of places we liked already. This is both a pro and a con, because it can also prevent you from exploring the area a bit more. However, it’s also a good thing, because you know what to look forward to!
We entered Takeshita dori and immediately I spotted a girl with royal blue and bright green hair and matching clothing passed us by and entered a store. She looked so amazing, even if I only saw her for a split second. ‘We are in Harajuku!’ is the only thing I could think. ^^
We went right, into the Le Ponte area. This small circular square has some cute shops and also a purikura hall and we like hanging out there. We explored the shops and saw so many cute things within just mere minutes! So much cuteness! >0< Some things also hadn’t changed They still sold the cutefied Crocs and the heart bags I had been thinking about for one and a half years (I ended up not buying one again, haha). They also still had the t-shirt stand in the middle of the square, where they sold the most varying kinds of t-shirts.
The shops around the square were filled to the brim with cute things, but I didn’t buy anything. I really prefer to orientate myself for a bit before I dive into spending money. So I just looked around and enjoyed myself being surrounded by cute and colourful things.
My mom spotted a bag with bathing French Bulldogs she really liked (can you tell she likes bags a lot?) and took a picture of it to keep it in mind. We walked around the square and immediately were drawn by the row of gashapon machines! When my mom discovered one that had cute and round Shiba Inus in them, she didn’t hesitate for a second and got herself a cute dog. She happened to get the cutest one of all the options and wanted to get a second one. She put money in the machine and turned the wheel… but nothing happened! It turned out the machine was empty. x) Luckily, the man from the purikura hall could help us and my mom decided to get something from another machine instead. Argh, gashapon machines are too amazing!
We left the Le Ponte area and walked into the Wego, which is located right across the entrance to the square. The Wego is one of those shops that is not clear to me what it exactly is. Some of the Wegos we passed or walked through only sold clothes, some mainly accessories. This Wego mainly sold accessories and awesome jewelry, my favourite kind of shop. :3
I spotted a lot of cute things, including a pair of round, gold glasses that were just my style! They looked super cute and I decided to buy them later. I walked around the shop some more, but didn’t find something I wanted. Some things were also a bit too overpriced in my opinion. Nevertheless, I really liked walking around the shop.
While looking around in the Wego I spotted the royal blue x bright green haired girl again, this time with a friend. He looked equally cool! (Mentioning this is important, I swear. You’ll see.)
We left the Wego and continued our way. We decided to do some purikura to start off the day, but when we arrived at this purikura place we know and got downstairs for some reason we decided to do it a little later. I can’t remember what the reason was, but I sure am happy we postponed it! More on that a bit down this post… ^^
We walked on and arrived at the Paris Kid’s, ‘the Japanese Claire’s’ as I like to call it.
During our previous trip I bought quite a lot of accessories at Paris Kid’s, because they had the cutest pastel things and other themes that were cute for spring and were just my taste. Since it was October now and around Halloween, I wasn’t sure whether I would find things to my taste. Well, there was no reason for fear: they had so many cute earrings! Shells, flowers, pearls, hearts, stars, snowflakes. I didn’t know where to look! And so many pompoms! Hair ties, earrings, necklaces: pompoms everywhere!
Unfortunately a lot of pompoms were made of real fur and I don’t like to wear real fur things. However, oddly enough, some pompoms were not made of real fur! My mom is really good at recognizing real from fake and could feel it too. So I ended up with a cute set of fake fur mint pompoms that looked super cute, shell earrings, snowflake earrings and a set of non-pierced heart earrings that I will modify soon. I also got three pastel beads bracelets (I’ve been looking for bracelets like this for years) and one multi-coloured one.
Actually, while we were looking around in the shop, I got a bit hot and decided to step out of the shop to be able to breath for a bit, when suddenly I spotted something in the corner of my eye. I turned and when I realised what I was looking at, my heart skipped a beat and my breath got sucked right out of me. Because in between the crowd of fairly normally dressed people, four people completely dressed in every colour of the rainbow walked in my direction. It was the royal blue x bright green haired girl with her friend, accompanied by none other than Kurebayashi and Junnyan. You know, only the most well-known and popular ‘Harajuku kids’ of the moment. Yeah, let that sink in. Especially because I couldn’t.
I found my breath, squeaked something like ‘Mom, come quickly please!’ at my mom (who had to squeeze herself out of the pretty crowded Paris Kid’s) and built up all the courage I had to approach them.
At that moment I was so overwhelmed I started to doubt my own abilities to recognize people, so for a moment I was afraid I was imagining the wrong people. However, I was right of course. I walked up to the group and said something along the lines of ‘I am so sorry to bother you, but I am a really big fan of you and I was wondering if I could take a picture with you.’ They all immediately said yes and were eager to pose with me. Oh my God they were so nice! ;_; ♥
in the middle of the street. Is this real? ;_;
As you might have noticed, the picture looks a bit strange. Unfortunately my mom’s camera decided to be a @#$%& and make all the pictures that were taken of this moment all grainy and old-looking. I was really sad when I found out, because this was such a special moment to me, but I am happy I still have the memories captured although not 100% pretty. I did manage to take some of the grain out though. Let’s not talk about it anymore. x)
For a moment, several people started taking pictures of us and we posed, but it didn’t last long. ^^ I talked a bit with Kurebayashi. She admired my accessories and was just the sweetest! ♥ Ah, I still can’t believe this happened!
We said goodbye and my mom and I re-entered the Paris Kid’s to buy the things we wanted (while I was still recovering from this amazing event). Then we decided to do purikura. ^^ We walked back to the stairs leading to the purikura corner and went downstairs. We looked a bit at the machines when I suddenly spotted the Purimadonna machine by Kyary Pamyu Pamyu! I had adored this machine during our second trip in 2012 trip and hadn’t seen it afterwards. And now it was just standing here! It turned out to be not exactly the same, but I didn’t mind at all because it was a fun machine. ^^
My mom and I had a lot of fun taking the pictures. The machine only did close ups, which was nice. We also both took a ‘separate’ picture which turned out to be a special portrait placed between the other pictures on the final result strip. I must say, this machine made us look the scariest of all! XD In some pictures I look utterly insane! Yet somehow I still love them though, this sheet is probably my favourite?
We left the purikura place and continued our way through Takeshita dori. We passed many amazing shops and sometimes entered them. When in Harajuku, I sometimes just don’t know where to look: left, right, down or up? Everywhere is something to see!
Finally, we arrived at a new building called Studio Alta. During our previous trip, the construction of this building had just started and was hidden behind colourful barriers. Now, a high, grey building with a big Disney store had appeared and we entered it.
Immediately we were overrun with sound. A typical Japanese shopping mall, every shop in Studio Alta had its own music but no walls to keep the sound inside. Result: different songs playing at the same time. Such noise!
We immediately spotted a small Swimmer shop and since this is one of our mutual favourite shops, my mom and I dived right in. Aaah, they had so many cute things! Swimmer is such an overwhelming shop, with shelves full of cute and colourful items. You can check out everything on a shelf, turn away, look back and you discover something new! It’s incredible.
While my mom was just casually browsing, I went looking for the heart-shaped watch. Just the night before, someone on my Facebook shared a picture from Swimmer showing four adorable heart-shaped watches with rhinestones on them and that needed to be opened to see the time. It reminded me of Sailor Moon (I have actually never watched Sailor Moon, but still) and it was instant love! I was hoping to find them in store, since they were sold out online. I quickly found the blue version and I believe the lavender as well, however I was mainly interested in the pink or white version. I decided to see if they still had some left at the Swimmer shop in Laforet. Meanwhile, my mom had found a cute mirror and went to buy it while I left the packed shop to avoid knocking things over with my petticoat. I spotted some adorable sweets and cookies which turned out to belong to Swimmer’s sweets brand: Chocoholic. Everything was so cute!
We took the escalator up and arrived at the Disney store. The shop was really beautiful: open, bright and elegant. I had read this store would be more aimed at women specifically, but I didn’t really see in what way. Nevertheless, we browsed the store and saw many cute things again.
At a certain point, I walked past a mirror at the same height as my face and when I looked in it, suddenly Tinkerbell appeared! She flew around my face and created sparkly circles adorning my head. It was magical!
We ended up not buying anything and left Studio Alta.
We walked on and arrived at the most adorable little shop that looked like a little white house with a pink roof. The shop was were the ManiaQ used to be, but now it was an Etude House shop! I am not particularly interested in their make-up, but this shop was too cute to ignore.
I also took a look inside, it was amazing! Above the shop was another cute shop where they made ufo-shaped cotton candy! I saw a lot of people eating them.
We walked on and passed several amazing shops. I wish we had twice the amount of hours in a day (and twice the amount of energy) to have looked at them all!
My mom asked me whether I wanted to enter Bodyline to check for the golden shoes, but I suggested to do so on the way back to the station (otherwise I would have to drag shoes around, if they had them). We walked on, passed several more amazing shops and then arrived at Closet Child. Of course, as you probably expected, we entered the shop. x)
I can’t help it, but I am always a little bit nervous before entering Closet Child. As I once wrote in a blog post: “Closet Child can make dreams come true, but can also be disappointing” and it’s still true. Of course, I had found Crystal Dream Carnival in Osaka and nothing could top that, but still. So we entered the shop and I hoped I would find something to my interest. I noticed the shop had changed a bit: there used to be one big rack of Angelic Pretty dresses, but now one of the other racks had a lot of Angelic Pretty dresses too. This was possibly due to the amount of stock of that moment.
My mom and I both began to browse and showed each other interesting dresses. I had told myself before our trip that I wanted to try and create a bit more mature Sweet Lolita style, but that idea soon dissolved… x)
To my great delight I immediately spotted interesting things! From the Angelic Pretty racks I pulled a pink, high-waisted Fancy Paper Dolls jumperskirt (a print I really like), a pink Toy Drops jumperskirt, both a beige military and blue normal style Chess Chocolate jumperskirt and a cute pink Baby, the Stars Shine Bright dress from another rack. Especially the two pink Angelic Pretty dresses had my interest. I decided to try them on.
I started out with the most interesting dress: Fancy Paper Dolls. I love this print, but the fact this dress was high-waisted worried me a bit. High-waisted often tends to make someone short looking shorter or makes you look weird when you have a bit of boobs. However, to my great surprise the dress actually looked super cute!? Of course, the fact I was wearing a blouse and matching socks really helped, but it looked really nice! ♥ My mom also really loved the dress, even though it has bunnies on it (and she rarely likes Angelic Pretty bunnies. XD). I was already convinced I wanted this dress and not the other ones, especially not the pink Toy Drops since it resembled Fancy Paper Dolls a lot in terms of cut and colour. I wanted to make a wise decision and not even try it on. However, my mom (surprisingly actually) said I should try it on after all! So I did and… this dress looked really nice as well! ♥ It was my mom actually who said I really should buy both! You’re supposed to let me make wise decisions mom! XD No, I am kidding. I loved both dresses a lot and they might be slightly alike, but still are quite different. So I decided to buy both! I believe Toy Drops was even quite a bargain.
My mom guarded the dresses while I went to the 7/11 to get enough money. I returned to Closet Child and bought the dresses, after which we went on our way again.
We had gotten quite hungry and were in desperate need of a crêpe. We crossed the street and ordered two mango crêpes at Santa Monica Crêpes. I really love Tokyo crêpes: they are so different from French crêpes. I mean, I like both, but these are just… cute, haha!
What I didn’t mention up until now is that it was quite warm, especially in my Lolita clothing. And after getting redressed in Closet Child some of my clothing didn’t feel comfortable anymore. My mom waited for our crêpes while I went to sit down and try to cool down. Soon my mom appeared and we ate our delicious crêpes.
After sitting down for a while, we continued our way. We walked on, all the way to the end of Takeshita dori, passing several amazing shops. We walked around the corner and kept walking. On the other side of the street I spotted a store fully dedicated to the Line app and I saw the Kawaii Monster Café, which we would visit later during the week. We walked on and arrived at the shopping mall Laforet. There were beautiful kimonos displayed in the shop window, accompanied by a bunch of cute little dolls. Do you remember the big, flower-shaped shop windows that used to be in front of Laforet? You often saw them on pictures. Sometimes I miss those. But this shop window looked very nice too. ^^
We entered Laforet and headed for the B1.5 floor, where the Lolita shops are. The first shop we encountered was Swimmer and of course we immediately entered it. While we looked around, I spotted a girl beautifully dressed in white and light blue. Her look was clearly Lolita inspired, with Tea Party shoes, but also something like Cult Party kei. Anyway, she looked stunning. Later, a Lolita dressed in pink walked around the shop too. ^^
Soon, I found the watches I was looking for! They still had all the colours at this Swimmer, so I could easily compare them.
The watches were all absolutely beautiful, but I decided on the white one. I also found an adorable magical girl-like mirror and… the mermaid bag I had been hoping to find!? Once in a while I browse the Swimmer website just for fun and there is always something I love. A little while ago I had spotted a shell-shaped bag with ‘mermaid’ on it, but I hadn’t expected it to be still for sale! Lucky me. ;_; Also, more shell items! I really love shells.
We walked on and arrived at Angelic Pretty. The shop was as pink as ever of course.
I browsed the shop while my mom checked out the store across the hallway. I noticed the shop girls were quite busy with one customer and I could understand why. Apparently she had ordered several dresses and was about to drop a huge amount of cash! It was especially interesting to see that see was dressed quite casually, while one of the dresses she bought was an incredibly over the top princess one piece! Meanwhile, I went on the hunt for something to buy and ended up with a cute bow-shaped chocolate bag, which was on
sale too!
Finally, the cash register was free and I went to pay. The shop girls apologized for being so busy, even though it’s their job! I said it was no problem. ^^
My mom and I had gotten very tired at this point and went to sit on the stairs leading to the higher floors (we are such rebels), looking out at a small store selling clothes covered in a comic-style flower print. We discussed on what to do and decided to check out one more store in Laforet, get some drinks across the street and then walk back through Takeshita dori to Harajuku station. We jumped to our feet and went to find the store, Favorite One, but once there I decided I was too tired to really look around. Maybe some other time. I did spot the cool Kera Halloween poster on one of the walls.
We left Laforet and crossed the street to get some drinks. We remembered there were some drink machines there. We arrived at the machines and picked two drinks. I chose a peach nectar drink, while my mom chose a yellow can, hoping it would be tasty.
We sat down on a low fence nearby and opened our drinks. I had had this drink before, so I knew it would be good, but my mom wasn’t so sure about hers. It had a strange, bitter aftertaste and she even wondered whether it was some kind of beer!
We did some people spotting while we sat down. My mom especially loved a girl wearing the same Jeffrey Campbell shoes as Kitch at La Vie en Rose.
We had regained some energy and went on our way back to Takeshita dori. When we passed Laforet I suddenly spotted two lovely Lolitas taking pictures with a photographer. I suspected them to be either shop girls, customers or shop girl and customer of Maison de Julietta, the Lolita make over shop. They looked so lovely that I wanted to ask whether I could take a picture with them. I waited until the photographer was done and then approached the girls. They were very eager to take pictures with me, but before my mom could lift up her camera the photographer jumped in front of her and snapped away! It was quite funny. Luckily, my mom could take pictures too. ^^
The sun was slowly setting while we walked back through Takeshita dori, creating a beautiful atmosphere with the illuminated shops. At Bodyline, I found my wonderful gold shoes. I had to get them a size bigger than I expected, but it was fine since they fit me wonderfully. Finally, my gold shoes! *o*
By the time we arrived back at Harajuku station it was dark. The Takeshita dori street sign looked really pretty. I wanted to take a picture of it when someone asked me to take a selfie with her. I was quite flattered, haha. ^^
We entered the station and waited for the next train.
We took the Yamanote line back to Shinjuku and went back to our hotel. On the way, we bought a melon pan and another bread roll at the Hokuo bakery. When we passed the orange clock, it was nearly 6 pm. We also got ourselves a drink from a vending machine.
We arrived back at our hotel. I put my bags on my bad, threw off my clothes and slipped into something more comfortable. Then we ate the bread rolls (which were so good).
After getting some rest, we went to MyLord to have dinner. It was already a bit late in the evening, but we had needed the rest. We decided to have dinner in one of our favourite restaurants: Obon de Gohan. During the year, my mom must have said at least 50 times 'I would love to go eat at the 'bowl restaurant'' (that’s what she calls it). So now we were going to. However, there was a line! For a moment we doubted about going to another restaurant, but we decided to wait and see whether the line would move fast. Since it was okay, we put our name on the list.
Once it was our turn, hilarity ensued. The waiter looked at the list and we could just hear him think ‘I don’t know how to pronounce this..?’ He looked up, spotted us and smiled. It was so cute and funny. x) At least, for us at that moment.
We were seated and soon we ordered our food. We didn’t have to wait long for it to arrive and as usual it was so goooood!
We paid and returned to our hotel. I took pictures of our purchases and then we went to bed. It had been a tiring, but amazing day and there were more to come!
And to end this post with, here is the first video I made about our adventures in Tokyo (there are two parts)! I filmed a lot and tried to make the best videos I could about our trip. I hope you will like it! ♥
You can find day 10 from 1:45 until 5:07. Please take a look if you want! ♥
Thank you for reading! ~☆~
Your harajuku blogs are amazing, just looking at harajuku and reading about it makes me cry with happiness and jump for joy, just the idea of harajuku makes my heart go dokidoki and ache with longing <3. It is my life goal to live in harajuku and possibly own a shop there, no matter how many harajuku blogs I read I still can't get over the fact that it actually exists. Since I am only 13 I have to beg my mum and dad for a trip to harajuku, but I'm not sure if it will happen but I shall stay hopeful ^w^
ReplyDeleteI am so glad you like them! ^^
DeleteHarajuku is an amazing place. <3
It truly is, thank you so much for your magical blogs. They make me feel like I'm really there!
Delete