Monday, September 12, 2011

Japan Day 15 - Last Day!

So all good things must come to an end and this is the end of our Japan trip!

We woke up and ate at freshness burger :)
We then catch this guy on a bike in clown costume just casually riding past us on our way to the train station, kicking myself I didn't get a photo!

Our last day involved visiting Harajuku and snapping some of the cool kids on the famous bridge and then over to Akihabara home of the anime/manga nerds (otaku) and the famous Sundays with girls dressed in costume handing out flyers...big day but I couldn't wait! weee

We get to harajuku and we see the clown boy again, but alas couldn't catch him in time for a photo! Foiled twice!

We sit down and I'm starting to worry about the lack of cool kids and the non activity happening on the bridge

We figured it's too early so we wander a bit more. At this stage we're already feeling the weight of having to carry all our bags and not just a light daysack, so Ben makes the call to dump our alcohol stash we'd been collecting, after deciding against giving it to a bunch of youths or guys dressed in uniform Ben figures the old dudes running the stores would appreciate a drop!

Ben drops off the liquor and walks back to me and next thing you know the vendor is running back over to Ben with a free coke :) Aw it was pretty cute!

At this point we spot clown boy AGAIN and he has a clown posse! Yay I can finally get my picture

We walked back over to the bridge and there seems to be a real lack of kids dressed up in there awesome outfits. My heart sinks a bit. I read an article before coming over about harajuku being dead since the earthquake and I personally found that not true, well except for the bridge! I don't want to confirm it, maybe we just lucked out and went on a quiet day, but if it's true then it really is quite sad! Come on youth of tokyo! dress up and let silly foreigners take your pictures.

Dishearten I called it and we left Harajuku.  There was still Akihabara to explore and I excitedly told Ben he'd get to see lots of cute Japanese girls in costume and nerds with long camera lenses taking their pictures!
We got to Akihabara and the main street was still running with traffic.
When I was last there they closed it off and all the costumed girls came out

Started to get a bit worried!

We had fun exploring though and I figured we would probably have to wait it out for the action to commence
\

wandered around the costume shops

Got our picture taken! This photo makes me laugh so much :)


they then closed off the street, finally!

But unfortunately the cute girls in costume never came out :(

I did snap a cute girl though

So that sort of makes up for it

and Ben got this sneaky one of me talking to the girl handing out the maid cafe flyers.
I asked for a her photo but she said her company didn't allow it we then had an awkward conversations basically going
"you're cute"
"no you're cute"
repeat 5 times
ha ha ha

See!
Ben also reckons he found the used underwear vending machine
but they weren't really used and it wasn't really a vending machine, lol.
I still think it's a Japanese myth, that one!



At this point we were both buggered and I was a little disheartened that the Tokyo I once knew had changed! How dare you change, Tokyo

So Ben offloaded his fireworks, this time to a cute couple in Akihabara
damn you Australian laws and your banning of fun-ness!

we had our last nikkuman
*tear*
and left behind the crowdedness of Akihabara

jumped back on a train to the airport


Got to Narita airport and has some custom nightmares from them chucking away my okonomiyaki sauce, nooooooooooooo! to Ben slashing himself with his pocket knife to prove it wasn't really sharp....lots of blood later and ben had to surrender it, much to the horror of the Japanese girl at customs who quickly came over with some swipes. Ah it was kind of sweet to end on a nice/worried/polite Japanese person note!


We left at night, I managed to sleep on the plane, hurrah and we arrived at gold coast airport at 6.25. Going from Japan summer to Australia winter was not cool!

luckily it was a nice sunny day, otherwise I might have cried

Thank goodness for airport blankets and masks to cover up sleepy faces!

and thus concludes the adventure! 

Thanks for reading and hey I still have a few Japanese clips to bombard upon you at a later stage :)









3 comments:

  1. Oh no they took your sauce! :( Damn customs!
    I'm a little sad to see the end of the Japan blogs! You'll just have to go again :)
    I am definitely getting myself over there one day, always been keen but your adventures have definitely made me even keener!
    Laughed so hard at the photo of Ben as bikini girl cutout hahaha too awesome!
    And I like the conversation you had with the cute girl hehe what a sweetie
    Ahhh such amazingness! Excellent blogging Fee!
    xoxo

    ReplyDelete
  2. awww sad fee! the end of japan adventures.

    SO SAD about the missing harajuku girls! i don't understand how an earthquake would affect that custom? either way, total letdown.

    ReplyDelete
  3. yeah it was super sad, I wonder if they have just relocated or it was an off sunday or they moved to saturdays now, I couldnt really find any updates on the internet about it

    :(

    ReplyDelete

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