Adventures of Anette: Harajuku

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Weekend in Tokyo I: Sightseeing and haircut in Harajuku

Anonymous 12:07:00 AM

In order to celebrate Norway’s constitutional day I went to Tokyo for the weekend to participate at the 17. mai event at the Norwegian embassy. The National Day is at the 17^th of Mai, but for practical reasons the celebrations were held on Sunday the 15^th. I left Kyoto by night bus on Friday the 13^th and arrived in Shinjuku, Tokyo, at around 7 am.

To be honest I was tired after the long trip and did not feel like going on sightseeing. After all I had already been a trip to Tokyo already and seen a lot on the stuff in the Shinjuku area, so instead of going sightseeing I went to a couple of parks in the area. The first one wasn’t that interesting; it was small and in front of a little temple there was a tiny village for homeless people.

The second one was the Shinjuku Imperial Garden (新宿御苑) where one had to pay 220 yen to get in. This one was a lot bigger and was a lot prettier to. But to be honest, most of the time here I spent sleeping on various of the benches. The weather was lovely and I did not have much energy at all, haha..

旧御涼亭

Anyway, after spending some hours in the park I continued south towards Harajuku.

When I went to Tokyo last time we did stop by Harajuku, but we didn’t have enough time to see a lot, so I wanted to take a closer look at the area this time. Though quite frankly Harajuku is most known for people going around wearing a little bit ..special clothing and fashion.

One of the many shops with rather special clothes for sale in Takeshita Street.

Takeshita Street

Kawaii (cute) is definitely cool in Harajuku. I'm not quite sure if I think this is cute though.. :p

Harajuku Station on the other hand does actually look quite nice.

Harajuku fashion..(?)

I did however have another goal with going to Harajuku: I was going to get a haircut! Which actually was my first time to the hairdresser since I came to Japan in September. Before going to Tokyo I had already done some research on the internet about hair salons in town, and found that Chie Funakura-san, who worked at Watanabe Hairdressing, was supposed to be really good with western hair. She was even awarded best hairdresser in Tokyo by the Australian Harper's Bazaar, so I did feel quite secure with my choice.

Watanabe Hair Salon was situated in Harajuku and was quite easy to find. After going down the overly crowded Takeshita Street you just turn left, walk till you are in front of the Starbucks cafe, cross the road and continue to the left up Harajuku Street till you see this sign on your left hand side.

My hairstylists Kento Utsubo-san and Chie Funakura-san and me, taken after the haircut.

The service at the salon was really good; in addition to the normal hair cut I also received some shiatsu head massage! Not to mention that I got to practice my kansai-ben (関西弁 - kansai-dialect) with one of the other stylists; Kento Utsubo-san. He is a really funny guy!

(Still, it is not a problem for those who doesn't speak Japanese to go here, since they do speak English as well.)

I am really satisfied with my new hairstyle. It feels a lot lighter now, and of course it looks much better too. I think it is important that you feel relaxed and that you can rely on the hairdresser, and that is just what I did at Watanabe Hair Salon. It is also a good thing to know that there is a place I can go to again when I need another haircut. I guess I'm a bit peculiar about my hair, so I always need to be certain that I'm in safe hands. Haha..

The address to the salon is Sun Beauty Harajuku B1, 3-25-6 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo. In addition to this their telephone number is 03-5411-5633.

Watanabe Hair Salon

After the haircut it was time to get going again (it was quite a busy day!), and this time my plan was to meet my friends Reiko and Teruko, which were exchange students at my university in Bergen a couple of years ago.
I met them at the Shibuya station, and we went to a cozy place called Sakuragaoka Cafe (桜丘カフェ), where they in addition to delicious food also had a couple of goats outside the cafe one could feed/look at. I've added some pictures of the restaurant as well:

Outside of the restaurant they had a cage with two cute goats in it.!

Now this is what I call kawaii:))

Me, Teruko and Reiko having dinner at the cafe

The cafe! Nice atmosphere, right? :)

Thanks to Reiko and Teruko for a great evening:D!

After the dinner I traveled to Asakusa, and here I slept at a capsule hotel. You can read about this and the rest of my Sunday at the Norwegian embassy ++ here.

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Sunday, February 20, 2011

Tokyo

Roundtrip in Japan: Tokyo & Kamakura

Anette 8:49:00 PM

On Saturday 19.th I met up with my family in Tokyo, but since we used longer time than expected before we finally met at the hotel we did not really do that much the first day. Our hotel was located in the Ginza area, which is good if you like to shop for expensive brands, but there is not that much to see there to be honest.

My family had bought the documents you need to exchange for the Japan Railway Pass before they came to Japan, but they hadn´t had the chance to get the actual pass when at the airport. Therefor we went by the underground to Shinjuku to get it done, and spent rest of the day in that area. In Shinjuku we checked out the so-called Electric Street (電気街) where they have large electric stores such as Bic Camera and Yodobashi Camera.

We also caught some glimpses of a group of girls in unique Tokyo fashion outfits.. Interesting.. ;p

Big TV-screens on the buildings literary screaming TOKYO!

And of course we got to see some art as well.

Instead of using a lot of time and energy to get to Tokyo Tower we decided to stop by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government instead since it was in the Shinjuku area. The entrance to the observatory in the 45th floor is free, so the decision was not really hard to make.

View from Tokyo Metropolitan Government

They also sell souvenirs on the observatory floor.

And since the entrance to the observatory was free we rather spent some money in the café looking at the nice view while eating chocolate cake! :D

Chocolate cake + nice view of Tokyo

After our stop by the observatory we walked south towards the Meiji Jingu (明治神宮) temple in the Shibuya area of Tokyo. Meiji Jingu is located in the north part of the Yoyogi-park, and personally I think walking through the park was about just as nice as the temple itself.

The entrance to Meiji Jingu.

After the visit to Meiji Jingu we wanted to go to Harajuku, but ended up taking a roundtrip around the Yoyogi park. When we arrived at Harajuku station we were tired and decided to call it a day.

Kamakura 鎌倉

To get out of the chaotic rush in Tokyo sure was good! After Tokyo our first destination was the historical city Kamakura, situated about one hour south from Tokyo by train.

The Kamakura train station. Here they have lockers where travelers can leave their luggage while heading for the many temples in the area. We decided to take a walk from the station to see the statue of the Great Buddha, and on the way we walked through some really cozy small streets.

Though our main goal in Kamakura was to see the statue of the Great Buddha, we also stopped by the temple Hasedera (長谷寺) on the way there.

In this temple-area one of the interesting things we got to see was this army of small Jizo -statues.

A picture of one of the bigger statues surrounded by smaller ones.

The main temple itself houses Japans largest wooden statue. It is not allowed to take pictures though.

In addition to the temple and the beautiful garden the view from the temple area was pretty good as well.

In the Hasedera temple area there is also a cave called Benten-kutsu. The cave is situated in the south-east part of the place, just look for the red tōri.

Inside this cave you can, among other things, see statues of the sea goddess Benzaiten chiseled into the mountain side.

One of the smaller passages in the cave. The ceiling is low and it is pretty dark in some areas of the cave, so be sure to watch your steps! I must say it really was an interesting experience though.!

Spring is in the air!

From Hasedera it only takes a small walk to get to Kōtokuin (高徳院). This is the place where you can see the statue of the Great Buddha (大仏). This bronze statue was constructed in 1252, and is Japans second largest Buddha statue.

A closer picture of the Great Buddha.

All posts about Tokyo

All posts about Kamakura

About Me

A modern-day shield-maiden who loves to explore the unbeaten paths of the world. From her base in Tokyo, Anette takes on both rural and urban challenges, and on her path, she has overcome anything from natural wilderness and cultural barriers to commuting in overcrowded Tokyo trains.

Life is too short to be stuck on one page, and this mindset reflects the diversity of Anette’s blog.
Besides being a career woman she is also a globetrotter, with 39 countries and counting.
No challenge too big, no adventure too small!

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