The wind died down today but the air was still fairly clear. In the morning I was able to see something that isn’t that obvious in the picture but really stuck out in real life. On the right side of the buildings in the middle of the picture is Mount Fuji! I even started up a video chat with my sister to show her the view.

Today I decided to go on a walk though the park close to Shinjuku: Yoyogi Park and Meiji Jingu. Instead I found some of the closest things to hell I could think of. I started out the walk in Harajuku. I remember listening to Aisha Tyler complaining on her podcast about how much she hated all the Harajuku style and I now know what she means. Takeshita Dori is a street lined with that cutesy Harajuku crap where girls had so much crap going on that I wasn’t sure if they were trannies (though I did see an old queen walking through with her hair in curlers). You can google “Harajuku style” to see it, but they look like dolls. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

I’m not sure what all was going on there.

No idea at all.

But oddly enough that whole area is filled with rich people. I’ve seen two Maseratis driven around as family cars with baby seats in the past two days.

So at the end of the Harajuku weirdness is the rich part of Harajuku. I’m not sure what all the store names mean since I’m sure I can’t afford anything in any of them, but in the panorama are Beluga, Ralph Lauren, Dior, Chanel, Bulgari.

But at the very end, next to the Bulgari store, is a Shakey’s pizza!

There’s more of a hipster feel down “Cat Street”. In fact, there’s more of a Portland feel with the galleries and sportswear stores including Columbia on the left and (if you can see it) Keen on the right. Adidas is right around the corner.

I followed the street down to Shibuya, where I found the sign of the day.

Back north towards Yoyogi park was the NHK Broadcasting Center. One thing I didn’t take pictures of were the huge lines forming in front of stores that were just opening or were having sales. I didn’t recognize any of them but I guess they were popular with the yoots.

The weather was “hot as balls” today. The thermometer said it was only 80°F or so but with the humidity and the direct sunlight it felt a lot hotter. I didn’t even make it into Yoyogi park and headed straight to Meiji Jingu, a huge shrine sacred to Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken. 100,000 trees were added at the time of Emperor Meiji’s enshrinement so that should tell you how large the grounds are.

The Japanese people aren’t that tiny; these gates are huge.

Here’s the entrance to the actual shrine.

And the final gate before the shrine. A cpu;le getting married are coming through the opening to the right of the gate.

And the actual shrine.

A view from the back of the last gate that shows some of the eaves.

I took the side exit to get out to Yoyogi station.

Even the short walk to the side exit was long.

My sister just sent me an email about a coffee shop and it was only around noon by this time, so I went back to find it. I could have sworn it was near Yoyogi station, but it was actually near Yoyogi-Hachiman which is all the way around the park close to NHK. So off I went, back around this huge-ass park and shrine.

It was way further than I thought it would be, and the roads don’t make that much sense. And I’m not sure I should have been wandering around where there were so many rich people. Hell, there was even a dressage facility with horses!

Anyway, I finally made it to the coffee shop and it was run by someone who had lived in Vancouver, B.C. I guess it’s been on a bunch of hipster blogs and that’s how my sister found out about it. It’s tiny and only seats about half-a-dozen at the most.

The coffee was what I expected from a Canadian (though she’s really Japanese). It was good but kind of bland.

I walked back to Shinjuku past the tonkatsu place that’s near the Nishi-Shinjuku Hotel. This picture is for my sister, mainly, because the picture on google maps is so different.

And here’s what’s in Google maps.

I took a couple of detours along the way to try to find some air conditioning and some more tourist maps, and finally got back to the hotel around 5:30PM, covered in sweat. You can see some of the salt rings on my shirt.

I wanted to know what the guys were eating a the Indian/Nepalese restaurant last week so I went back. It wasn’t as good as the first time and I don’t think I need to go back. What I thought were shumai with spicy sauce was shumai with spicy sauce. And the samosas came with ketchup. Ah well, at least I found the answer to the mystery.

The typhoon is coming tomorrow so I may not get out at all. It’ll start raining in the middle of the day and they’re saying when it really hits (expected around 6PM) the rain will exceed 80mm/hour. That’s more than 3″ every hour!