Day Four Japan Part two

So Ben and I walked into the beautiful yoyogi park, and it was here we bumped into Takahashi. Next thing you know we're viewing irises with this man we just met! Too quick too soon!

That's takahashi getting some quality shots on his mobile

Ben and Takahashi!

I have to point out here that all the photos takahashi requested on his phone, were of me and him ha ha ha!

Ben and him did all the talking whilst I made sure to hang back a little. Hang on, I shouldn't paint takahashi in bad light, he really was a nice dude. So anyway we were exiting the iris viewing section and found ourselves face to face with a guard who was collecting people's tickets for the next section of the garden

Turns out we didn't have that particular ticket to grant us entry. Long story short, a lot of Japanese words were exchanged and really the only part I made out was when the guard put his fingers to his lips in a hush hush manner and ben said his best thank-you in Japanese and we were ushered through. Turns out Takahashi managed to get us in for free which would have cost us 1000 yen each (little over ten bucks).Takahashi told Ben his timing was impeccable with his Arigato gozaimasu (thank-you) and that it really sealed the deal.

So what exactly were we going to see...

some Well?

Kiymasas's Well to be exact. We waited in line and I enquired to Takahashi what the intrigue was all about, he looked just as puzzled as me and went to ask another guard on duty about the Well

Mobile phones again!

Turns out this Well, if you take a picture of it, it gives you special powers

So as my gift to you today, here is a special power picture for you to look at

If there is one thing I appreciate about Japanese culture it's their nature to embrace the slightly quirky and believe in things that perhaps people in Australia would merely mock

after getting boosted up at the Well, we went for another stroll to Meiji Shrine

sake bottles

traditional Japanese wedding!

another guard doing his guard thing!

I think Takahashi wanted to hang out more, but we needed to keep moving, so we exchanged numbers and promised to hang out again early next week. Takahashi said he knew of a cheap yakitori bar. Yum yum, count us in

and with that, we never saw Takahashi again. Ahhh, not because we didn't like takahashi more that we never worked up the energy again to arrange another hangout! He'll have to wait till next time we're in Tokyo!

So yes we then walked to Shibuya, in hopes of finding a themed restaurant called "lock up" which I had found whilst researching 'quirky Japanese bars' on the internet and which I had also heard about from a primary school friend :)

The Famous Shibuya crossing!

We got to Shibuya and we managed to get horribly lost with my map print out. I then had the very insensible idea of ringing their number. Ahhh please don't try and ring a Japanese number, if you're Japanese is extremely limited, you'll end up having to hang up on the poor person on the other end. I dunno how we did it but we actually made it to our destination in the end!

We then stood around like idiots, thinking the place was shut simply because we couldn't open the door, we eventually opened it *hits head* and walked down the scariest entry to a restaurant I've ever walked down.

Ben went "you go first cause I want to film it", errr, yeah right....*ducks behind Ben*

I was scared!

When we got to the restaurant, we were handcuffed by a lady in a police outfit and for a split second I thought I had gotten things really wrong and I was about to be really embarrassed, but alas, the handcuffs came off and we sat down in our cell for dinner.  Ben later told me he was a bit worried about the handcuffs and the logistics of us being able to eat our meal, ha ha ha

Dinner was ace and even my water came creatively served

We then got up to go pay for our bill. Now mind you, nobody really spoke English at this place and the poor lady at the counter got into a bit of a frizzle trying to explain to us that we needed to stay because we hadn't even seen the show yet. We thought she was getting up us, cause we hadn't spent enough cash and were all "eerr, no we are happy, we WANT to leave"

Funny in hindsight, anyway after a few minutes of awkward, limited language exchange, we went and sat back down and it was a good thing we did, because it was then the real entertainment started. I wont say no more in case someone reading this wants to go in the future, but yes, I was scared but in a cute Japanese scary type way!!

Definitely go if you ever get the chance it was definitely my favourite eating experience of our trip!
I think ben took a few videos, which I'll try to post up in the next few weeks!