Harajuku is for Lovers

Lies!  Lies!  Unless your lover is the spirit of shopping, then yes, actually, Harajuku is for lovers.  Three of the students took S.J. and I to the land of Love, Angel, Music, and Baby to see the scene and hopefully catch some of the wild otaku* cosplay kids.  And what we found was discounts galore!  Well, sort of galore.  More like discounts here and there.  But some of the shops were so cool/crazy!  They had the most intense decorations, my favorite being the Alice in Wonderland theme, that featured a rabbit hole style entrance decorated with flowers and ivy, with the mannequins out front having bunny heads.  I must say, after the actual White Rabbit, these were some of the most stylin' bunnies I have seen.

After we had been there for 45 minutes or so, the famous Japanese rain showers began, and while I hoped the downpour would discourage the faint-hearted and clear the area a little, it actually seemed that the streets began to get even more crowded then they previously had been.  We headed to an intersecting street that had so many people that it seemed to be a line on our path to Forever 21.  After we rounded a corner, though, I saw that we were actually in the line for the store--it was such an intense line that it required ropes and multiple security guards.  Getting inside allowed relief from the rain, but casual browsing apparently was a thing of the past--rivers of people determined the flow of shopping; for FOUR FLOORS we moved as a human wall.  Despite getting any shopping done there, I was impressed with the very cool decorations of the store--plus, the view was pretty spectacular.

The shopping ambush of Forever 21 and the continuing 

rain seemed to drown us of our energy, so we stopped at a nearby Italian restaurant to regain our strength.  We tried hitting up a few more shops after that, but we decided to call it quits before even making it to the other side of Harajuku.  Still, it was a wild ride--and I'm excited to go back!

 

The Lingo-Dingo:

Otaku = Can be translated as "fan" or, more commonly to non-otaku Japanese, geeks/nerds.

Cosplay = Costume play