So I'll say right off the bat, I don't remember so much of how this day began nor the Rugby. We had plans to go see a Rugby game in Tokyo between Japan and New Zealand. I had plans to take 5 people from Fukushima City to Tokyo, but at the last minute, 3 passengers decided they weren't ready to wake up or something (maybe sick?) and skipped my ride. So it was only Cormac and myself that made the 5 hour journey to Tokyo.
We drove the Expressway for most of it but the closer we got to Tokyo, Google maps had us take more local roads and highways. It took a really long time, but we made it with time to spare. We ended up parking about a half mile from the stadium in a nice little neighborhood.
I found a good parking spot that said they charged ¥28,000 (~$24 at that time) to park for 24 hours. I expected to stay in Tokyo for about 36 hours, so this price seemed fine to me. (Narrator: "Little did she know the drama that would arrive from this decision. Read the the next blog post for the conclusion to this.)
We walked from the parking lot to the stadium and met up with our other friends who had traveled separately. I watched some YouTube videos about the basic rules of Rugby, and we hung out. We were about 2 hours early for the game, but it was still fun to socialize.
The Rugby game itself was kinda boring. Japan got creamed by New Zealand. This was fine, I didn't have a preference one way or another, but one of our friends is a Kiwi, so he was super pleased that his team won.
After the rugby game, we all boarded a train and rode into downtown Tokyo, where the rest of our vacation would commence.
I was in the mood to go buy some things in Harajuku and I had a list of places that I had been wanting to go check out.
By the time we actually made it to Harajuku a lot of time has passed and the sun was close to setting, it was starting to get darker.
One of the first places was a store in Harajuku called Alice on Wednesday. It, obviously, sells Alice in Wonderland merchandise. I LOVE Alice in Wonderland, so this was a necessary addition to my Tokyo trip. It is located just off the main road in Harajuku. It is a small street, it could be an alley. The street is so narrow that it is hard to take a good picture of the building. But I was able to manage. You will also notice that many of my pictures are rather blurry. This is because the interior of the store was also pretty dim, and it made it pretty hard for my camera to take clear photos.
The outside of the store has multiple doors, and most, if not all but one of them, are fake. The door most customers use to get into the building is a tiny door, reminiscent of the scene in Alice in Wonderland where Alice shrinks herself in order to pass through a door much smaller than herself. In this case you just need to crouch or crawl through. Here are a few different pictures of the exterior of the building and what the door looks like from the inside. You can see that there is a narrow, and jagged hallway that you must also pass through before you can stand upright and shop.
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| The entryway of the store. |
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| Add caption |
There are 3 floors in this shop. There is a narrow staircase that is square-shaped that goes to the upper floor and one floor that goes down. The floor in the basement was not really Alice in Wonderland themed, it was just white. White lights, walls, and floors. And it was a room dedicated to Alice in Wonderland snacks and drinks. I ended up buying a small bottle of soda with a tag on it that said "Drink Me."
Going to the upper floors, there were lots of rooms which had things like bags, jewelry, hair accessories, notebooks, key chains, dishes, and much more.
One of the rooms was Mad-hatter themed, which had many different kinds of accessories. It had a large desk on which many accessory displays were set up. Along the walls it had various paper items, such as notebooks, journals, folders, writing utensils and things like that. Above the desk there was a large lamp or chandelier that was shaped like the Mad Hatter's iconic hat. There was also a stained glass window behind the desk with another image of the iconic hat. It was a really cool room.
On another floor there was a Queen of Hearts themed room. This one had a rather large stained glass window that had hearts and the other playing card suites. In front of the window there was a large heart-shaped throne. I got a picture of Cormac sitting in it while I shopped the amazing amount of jewelry and accessories that were in this room. I bought quite a few Alice in Wonderland themed necklaces and earrings. I think this room was my favorite.
When you traveled to the different floors, the staircases were also themed. There was a stone-walled staircase that had many framed pictures of various Alice in Wonderland characters; such as the White Rabbit, the Jabberwocky and the Cheshire Cat. The Cheshire Cat picture was partially 3D, and was lit up from the inside. All through the building, there were about a dozen doors that were all shut, some were locked and some were just cleverly hidden by drapes. I mistakenly thought one was meant for customers and opened it only to discover a supply closet. I saw an employee emerge from another door and was able to peek behind her and saw a stockroom. It was a pretty fun-looking place.
The other staircase was garden themed. It had pictures of the singing flowers, as well as mushroom reliefs with the Blue Caterpillar. It was really neat.
After buying the items I wanted, I was headed out the small door and saw another door that was even smaller! Looked like a door for a mouse.
When we emerged from Alice on Wednesday, it was pretty dim outside. The sun had fully set, and the sky was quickly darkening. At this time I'd say it was only ~7:30 pm. But the time zones for Japan are a joke, and you can read more about that on the blog post "First Day of School" from June 2013. Specifically the comment at the bottom by my friend Dave.
We were getting hungry at this point, so we decided to find some food. We settled on a little Italian restaurant on the main road in Harajuku called La Vongole, which has since closed. It sits right across the street from the Desigual store, and is right around the corner from Alice on Wednesday.
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| Another beautiful example of Engrish. |
We ordered our dishes, Cormac got spaghetti and I got a chicken alfredo pasta. They came in the cutest seashell-shaped plates!
When it arrived, the tea was bright blue, and had a lemon to the side. The waitress told me to wait, and handed me a little instruction card for the tea. I read the instruction card, and pulled out my camera to film the fun process. See below!
As you can see, the tea starts out as a bright blue, but changes to a bright purple when the ph of the tea becomes more acidic with the addition of the lemon.
It's such a little thing, but I think it was so fun!
After we were done eating, we still wanted to do things and make a late night of it, instead of turning in. So we did a quick search on google maps to see what was nearby and open. Cormac suggested going to the Kawaii Monster Cafe. I had never heard of it, but he insisted because he saw a video once and had been wanting to check it out. We were lucky at how close it was. Less than 2 blocks away.
We walked in and were greeted warmly by the hostesses. They lead us to a large table in the back of the main room. It was kindof garden-themed. We passed many differently themed rooms and booths, but only this one had customers in it. It was so crazy! Even so, there was alot to look at and take in!
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| This is the path from our table out towards the main stage. |
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| It's a bit hard to see, but we were seated in front of a mirrored wall. |
We were too far from the performing stage to see anything, so we spent times eating our desserts at the table, and standing in the aisles to watch the show. The show was a woman dressed in a Caberet-style dress and lip-syncing as she danced on the rotating cake/carousel stage. There was also someone dressed as a giant cat dancing as well. It was so wild! Here are a few animations I made. It takes several stills that were close together and puts them together so you can get an idea of what the performance was like. I also have one short video of one of the performances.
Here are a few stills of the performances.
After some of her performances, Cormac was smitten and asked to have a picture taken with her.
And what the hell? Me too.
We finished up our desserts. Cormac got a slice of rainbow-cake. I got a cup of hot chocolate and a small dish of Tuna Tartar. It was pretty tasty. I tasted Cormac's cake, but it was kinda dry and I didn't care for it.
In addition to the performers; the waitresses were also dressed pretty quirky and fun!
We stayed for maybe an hour and watched a few more shows. It was pretty fun. The lighting in the cafe was dark, so my pictures aren't the best, but they're good enough. One thing I loved was the different rooms. The night we were there, it wasn't busy enough to open the side rooms, so they sat empty. But it worked out because I was able to get clear photos of those rooms. The lighting changed the colors of the rooms, so it's a bit picture heavy, but you get the idea.
I also really liked the restrooms. They looked so cool!
After we left the cafe, it was time to try and find lodging. We had planned on checking out the famous "love hotels" in Tokyo, and you do not reserve them ahead of time. So we went in search of some. We walked down less-popular roads in search, and we found plenty. Sadly, because you cannot reserve a room ahead of time, and it's "first-come first-serve", most all the hotels we came across were already booked up.
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| This shop was quite strange, what with the logo and the mannequins. But I loved it! |
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| Harajuku: Where the Cute an Bizarre come together. |
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| This really fancy vending machine. |
We walked around for an hour and a half or so, and at this point it was after midnight.
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| This is just a really pretty building we passed. |
We finally found a hotel with a vacant room, and you picked the room from a wall of the lobby. There was a grid which showed a small picture of each of the rooms. Most of the rooms were taken, but there were two vacant rooms. One, by the picture was a plain, boring room. The other, however, had a large fish tank. I asked Cormac if he wanted to stay or keep searching for a cooler hotel. He said he was getting tired, and that a large fish tank in the room was cool enough for him.
We booked the room and went up.
It was a really cool room. When you walked in the entry way, you could either go straight into the main room or go to the restroom and tub-room down a hallway to the right. In the hallway to the right, if you were standing in the hallway, the sink and mirror were on the wall to the left, and the toilet was in a small room behind a door to the right. Straight ahead was a fairly large tub room. The tub was made of wood and was really nice. The tub was on the right side of the room, and to the left was the fish tank.
Back out to the entryway, you go straight to the bedroom/main room. Straight ahead was the small tables, and to the right was a mini fridge and an electric kettle. Normal things for a hotel room. To the left you see the bed. And that is when I realized that you could see the same fish tank to the right of the bed. The fish tank took up a space in the wall, so you could see right through to the tub room.
There was really pretty art on the walls, that looked like it was frosted glass with paint, and it was back-lit. It was a really nice room and it was a nice stay. I took a bath and relaxed and tried to massage my feet in the hot water and make the aches and pains of walking all over Tokyo go away.
After that we turned off the lights and spent the night staring at the fish in the fish tank. It was lit-up with a black light as well as a normal light, so it made the fish glow. it was really cool!
It was after 2 am before I actually got to lie down and go to sleep.
When we woke up, our Tokyo trip continued and it was so much fun! But that is to be explored in the next post. Peace!
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