Harajuku

Once in a while, the daycare on the military base opens up on Saturdays to give parents a break for the day or evening. Mike and I decided to take advantage. We dropped Josh off at the CDC (Child Development Center) while we took a day trip up to Harajuku. I've been wanting to check out Harajuku for quite some time now, but we're always worried about lugging around a stroller and an impatient toddler in the middle of one of the trendiest areas in Tokyo. We found out today that Harajuku is fairly child-friendly. In fact, I think I may want to go back there on a weekday with Josh now that I know how to get there. I did do a lot of looking into Harajuku before going there.

I've discovered some very helpful websites along the way. Tokyo-Yokohama/Gourmet Navigator gave me some great ideas on places to eat that are Gaijin friendly. They have listings of restaurants in areas of Yokohama and Tokyo that have English translated menus and/or English speaking staff. The listings also included some organic options. I also stumbled upon an awesome blog that included some good links as far as shopping goes: Fashion is Spinach

Besides the fashion spinach site, she also has a Betsy Goes to China site. This woman has been all over Asia and, although it is very much fashion/chick writing, the pictures are very cool.

After checking out some sites, we stopped at Harvester for lunch. Although I had higher hopes for where we were going to stop for food, this ended up being really good. Harvester's specialty is its roasted chicken, which is excellent. Mike and I got chicken, fries and 2 Kirins for about 2000 yen. It's hard to miss right outside of Harajuku Station headed towards Omotesando.

After lunch we stopped at several famous tourist shops. Oriental Bazaar carries Yukatas, vintage obis, tea sets, fans, and other fun things to take back home after vacations. We also stepped into Kiddyland, which is a very fun 5 story toy shop, much like a Yoshida/Toy shop. Mike and I invested in a completely frivolous toy. It's a "Humping Dog" USB plug in, that basically looks like its name implies. It's a little beagle dog with an attached USB plug, and when you plug it in, it looks like it's, well... you get the picture!

As I've mentioned before I'm much more interested in current Japan rather than past Japan. There is something interesting about the Japanese pop-culture. Something that is very popular here in Japan and also in the States is LeSportSac. It's an American handbag company. They recently came out with a new Tokidoki print. Despite the name and looks, this design was actually created by an Italian designer. However, since I've set eyes on it, I was in love. The print that I wanted for a while had been discontinued and hard to come by. Well luckily for me, we found the bag that I wanted at the LeSportSac store in Harajuku. Am I a complete sucker for trends? Well, maybe, but this bag is REALLY so KAWAI!! I now have this Tokidoki bag that I can't keep my eyes off of. Mike even admitted that it is really cool and while coming home on the train he said there was a young Japanese woman that couldn't take her eyes off of the "LeSportSac" shopping bag that he was carrying (with the Tokidoki bag inside). LeSportSac seems to be much more popular here than in the States. However, I really appreciate the bold colorful prints. I usually where pretty basic shirts and pants so, it's nice to now have an accessory that kind of pops out.

Even if we hadn't found my "dream bag", this would have been an excellent afternoon. It's rare that us "country folk" from Yokosuka get a chance to visit the big city and do some people watching.