Spontaneous Japanese Daytime Woodland Rave! and other stories

Konnichi wa!

On Saturday we intended to go to Harajuku, but we got a bit lost and ended up in a very posh, very expensive place where we clearly didn't belong. However, this prompted a very nice walk around some hilly places and past a HUGE cemetery (where, bizarrely, people were having picnics - I think just because there were some more blossoms there). Eventually we walked our way to the Imperial Palace, where we weren't allowed to go because the Emperor lives there, but it looks very impressive anyway. Next to that were a couple of museums - one with some very cool dolls and the other was the Science Museum - and I think all that needs to be said about how cool science is can be shown in this photograph:


This museum was amazing. It was all designed for children, in fact we were the only adults there without them, but since we couldn't understand anything anyway there was no need to get bored. There was a machine with a piano and drum pads that showed visual representations of the music you were playing on a screen, and a machine that took your photo with four cameras in time to music, then repeated the photos on lots of screens so that it made a real-time dance video. Oh, and we spoke to a robot. Let me say that again. We spoke to a robot. She couldn't speak English, but she recognised the Japanese that we spoke and replied to us.
We left the museum about five, which in this part of town is apparently when everyone starts jogging. We were on a looooong road and in the distance we could see something that looked like the Eiffel Tower, so we decided to walk to it. This was a long walk, but on the way there were more playgrounds (loads of playgrounds in Tokyo...). We arrived at the Tokyo Tower amidst some skyscrapers but also some Buddhist shrines, which is nice to stumble upon. We didn't go up the tower as the queue was too long, but quite near it were some more people having blossom picnics for supper, so we stopped and had some octopus.



Yesterday we met up with Ami, an old friend of Tom's who lives in Tokyo. She took us to the real Harajuku (very near where we were, actually) which was very crowded and full of hip young kids. We had some sushi, which was both very delicious and very cheap. So far there is no evidence that Tokyo is expensive - almost everything has been cheaper than in England, except perhaps accomodation and beer. Then we walked to Shibuya, which is the famous area with the very busy crossing and the two-story TV screen (Scarlett Johannson goes there in Lost in Translation), that was very bustling but still relatively calm and happy. We went to an arcade, looked in some strange shops and then made our way to the Shibuya park, where there were more blossom festivals. Loads was going here and it's a really nice park, and while making our way through it we stumbled upon a rave. Spontaneous Japanese Daytime Woodland Rave! We danced under the trees into the evening, until the speakers broke so we moved on through the rest of the park, where several other raves were going. We climbed some trees, went through some more playgrounds and then finally got some pizza and the subway home.
In a huge toy shop, I met Totoro!
Shibuya crossing - lot and lots of people
Rave!
Even in the busiest and most crowded areas of Tokyo, the atmosphere is very upbeat and happy. I suspect this might be because it's spring, but the city itself is so interesting that it's hard not to enjoy it.