India Trekker

Terumi and Margaret's Excellent Tokyo Adventure (aka Hard Core Shibuya). My host in Tokyo, Terumi (and her husband Satoshi) wanted to show me the 'real' Shibuya. She said we'd see the traditional, modern and weird. So, we planned a day to explore. Since she had a bit of work to finish up, I started out in the morning by walking around the neighbourhood, visited the Nezu Museum and Mejii Temple. Then we met up later in the day. Here's the course of events:

Before meeting up with Terumi, I got my hair cut. I found Peek-a-Boo salon in Harajuku and Takeshi Horie gave me an excellent cut. I felt like a bonsai because he actually spent quite a bit of time on the details and even cut individual hairs! This is Horie, not me.

Afterwards, I met up with Terumi at Omotesando Hills shopping complex (nice place) and she took me to Tabio to buy socks for Sophia. We visited a lovely home decor shop and then is was 'sake" time.

We went to Hasegawa Saketen, the sake-tasting bar conveniently located inside the shopping complex.

We wondered if it was too early (3pm) to start drinking sake but I figured it was late night in Toronto and so we had a couple of samples and I bought a few bottles as gifts.

We hit another food store where Terumi bought some traditional Japanese food (more on that later). I bought another bottle of sake because you can never have too much sake. Terumi then gave me the tour of Harajuku district - Harajuku video. Then it was Tokyo subway time! Before going out to dinner we decided to head home and drop off the packages. I had a knap sac full of stuff - mostly sake. The subway was crowded. Really crowded. When a train came into the station, I thought we'd wait for the next one. I said to Terumi, 'there's no room". She said "make room" and push me into the car - Tokyo train video.

Once home, before we headed out for dinner, Terumi decided that I should try some traditional Japanese food. Here's the results: Beans and Plum Pickle video

We're all ready for a night out on the town. But food first!

Terumi thought I should select our dinner items. Hmmm... I'll have one of each?

We had a great meal!

After dinner it was time to hit the streets. Love the plastic food.

This store was amazing. Floors of stuff. All kinds of stuff. Furry iPhone cover anyone?

There seems to be a food theme here. This one fascinated me. Step 1: check out the menu outside and decide on your main dish with toppings.

Step 2 put your money in the machine and make your selections. Step 3 you take your ticket inside and get your food.

We climbed the narrow stairway to check out ManBoo! Seriously. The nation that brought us the capsule hotel has done it again. The country’s working poor—and salarymen who don’t want to spring for a capsule after a night of drinking—are spending nights in Internet & Comic cafes. For $12 to $20, they get a reclining chair in front of a computer, soft drinks and all the ice cream you can eat!!!, comics and, of course, Internet access. There are showers too. No word on how many low-budget travelers (also known as the backpack lunatic fringe) are spending nights in Internet cafes.

After touring ManBoo we decided it was time for more Sushi! This local eatery was self serve with sushi and drinks travelling around the room on a little track. There was a great collection of people. Now I regret that I did not get my photo with the 'hard core Shibuya girls'. You were right Terumi, I should have taken the photo. (I was worried that the chick with the tattoo would punch me out!)

The we headed down this alley beside the railway tracks... okay so it wasn't this alley. It was a slightly nicer one than this one. We did walk this one later in the evening.

And we passed this tiny bar (actually there was a series of tiny bars and eateries in this alley) which had a couple of people hanging out the doorway who encouraged us to "come on in" At first we declined but then, well, just one more drink wouldn't hurt. (photo is not mine. I grabbed it from Flickr. Bar name is Non. Very cool)

This was the very happy bar tender.

Happy patrons

Counting Terumi and I, there were seven people in this bar and it was at capacity. Then eight people showed up and they climbed the very small stairs to the second floor.