Day 4 (Saturday) :
On our second day of exploration, we decided to explore Harajuku and Shibuya because both places were next to one another. As usual, we packed our favorite coffees and onigiri from the mart near our apartment before taking the train to the city. We took a local train from Tobu-toju line to Ikebukuro and from there we took the Subway Metro to Harajuku Station.
I was surprised by the weekend crowd! Right in front of the station was Takeshita Dori, the famous alley packed with colourful little stores and people. We took pictures like all the foreigners :D But we didn't enter the alley right-away, it was supposed to be our next plan after lunch.
We headed to Yoyogi Park after asking this young Japanese girl that gave me a survey form on travelling plan. I happened to make 2 mistakes here :
1. We were supposed to stop at Meiji-Jingumae Station instead of Harajuku Station, it stopped right in front of Meiji-Jingu shrine entrance so we don't have to walk.
2. I thought Yoyogi Park was inside of the Meiji-Jingu area. So we walked straight to the shrine but couldn't find the entrance to the park.
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Meiji-Jingu :
Everything was huge here. We admired its 40-feet gigantic entrance, toyed with its little stones on the pathway that were scraped by an old uncle, took images of old lamp posts along the road, beautiful komorebi behind leaves and branches from big old tall tress, nice almost-autumn weather, and every one was walking.
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That tiny little human is me :
But, after quite a while, we reached another exit of the place. I was like "Eh? Mana Yoyogi Park?". By that time we already walked around 700 meter. We were both getting hungrier and to walk back means more extra time and energy. So I decided to check out Meiji-Jingu shrine first before searching for Yoyogi Park. When we reached the shrine, we saw several Japanese weddings. There were a lot of people around, so it wasn't a quiet and serene moments for both of us. We spent around 15 minutes and walked out of the place.
We walked around 2.5 km inside of the Meiji-Jingu area.
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Yoyogi Park :
Next thing I found out, Yoyogi Park was located right next to the Meiji-Jingu area, outside of the place. You need to walk around 5 minute to the entrance =.= So take note : If you want to go to the Yoyogi Park, it is not inside of Meiji Jingu, eventhough the map shows all greenery like it's in the same place.
We bought a bottle of water and juice, found a table and sat there to enjoy our lunch picnic. We ate like any hungry people would. Crows and birds were all around, waiting for us to give some rice from the onigiris that we were eating. The park was full with people, some having picnic, some chatting, there were group of teenagers practicing their dance moves, there were people running *in the afternoon - it was not so hot anyway, young parents brought their cute children to play, people rode their bicycle with their pets in the basket. It was everything I never saw in our local parks - we don't usually hang-out in our too-hot-too-sweaty parks, being outdoor is too exhausting. Kan?
We also found a lady with her meerkat pets running around, so cute ! :
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Takeshita Dori :
This is where you will find young Japanese crowds spending their weekend. People love to share pictures of cute Japanese waitress giving leaftlets of their restaurant, this was the place. There was a big Daiso as well, but we weren't searching for anything. The alley was more or less like upgraded version of Petaling Street, I guess. Wasn't looking for anything, so we just make one whole walk through the alley and headed straight to Shibuya.
It would be interesting to explore the place if we have enough time tho.
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