Travel Journal – Sunday 18/4 – 2010

Harajuku, photos and walking.

Well, yesterday we decided, or at least I said and Drak didn’t protest against it, that we’ll would start to get up earlier in the morning since the last few days we’d lost a little too much time idling in Kita Urawa and not doing much at all. If we would continue with this we would soon end up doing nothing and I wouldn’t want that since I would deeply regret not taking the opportunity to do things when I’m back in Japan.

Last time I idled too much and barely got anything done either. But then I had more reasons to idle too. One, I didn’t have a rail pass, which kind of made travelling here and there at a whim very expensive. Two, I had no plan or even the faintest idea of what I actually wanted to do in Japan. And three, I spent much of my time with Danielle and some of our days were tiring and quite full of things so idling was only natural.

Anyway, the day began with us getting up and then going to the temple to meet with Miiko. Today she would introduce us to Mari Mouri, her Temple Parent (or whatever they called it) and tomorrow we would most likely go with Mari Mouri to the Tachikawa Main Temple since Miiko couldn’t. The Morning Prayer was boring, as most long religious ceremonies, with people talking after the 15 minutes of chanting. As I understood it they read from their holy book and then a priest talked about their reflections as they do in church. Miiko was very anxious all the time since Mari hadn’t shown up when she should and she seemed to believe that Mari had dismissed us. But after the ceremony we met her in the hallway.

Miiko would go to Sesshin Training after the ceremony so as soon as she had introduced us she left us to go and watch a Movie with Mari while she was in this group meditation thingy. Mari though barely know any English at all. So after the movie she tried to talk to us about some things but she had a very hard time explaining. She tried to use English even though she knew that we knew some Japanese. Soon Miiko came and we continued the conversation. When it was time to go, Miiko offered us to eat something but I politely refused. I had decided that since there was sunny outside we wanted to go and have a look at Harajuku. We also had kind of decided to meet up with some Couch Surfers in Harajuku sometime after 12. So we parted ways. And yes, I said no to food believe it or not.

Anyway we went to Harajuku to look around. It sure was a lot of people there as usual during the weekends but not even close to as many people it would have been earlier in the day or during a Saturday. We looked briefly at the Elvises and just walked around in the big Yoyogi Park. We ended our walk outside a big structure which must have been a Sports Arena or something where we sat on the stairs and just relaxed in the sun.

Suddenly two Japanese girls sat down about half a meter beside me. I looked at them curiously just to see who they were and they immediately moved closer, apologizing and asking if it were okay. I first thought when their third friend waved a camera that they wanted me to photograph them but quickly realized that they wanted to photograph me, with them besides me. It was a really nice surprise, I thought that maybe we should try to talk to them but before any of us got a word out our mouth they had snapped the picture and gone away.

This though wasn’t the only encounter my hair had this day. Now totally neglecting all the young people (below the age of 10) that stares and yells “Sugoi!!”¹ and stares openly. When we came to Ikebukuro after we had decided to walk from Harajuku to Shinjuku, and we had walked around for a bit in Ikebukuro and was in search for internet we met two Americans in a Star Bucks that yelled; “Wow! You really stand out man!” we had a brief presentation and talked when they directed us to a good Internet Café only yards away from the Star Bucks. As a side note, one of the Americans was named Daniel as Drak.

Well, we checked internet and then we went home. I called Higuchi-san and talked about our trip. Since we would be gone almost the whole week I wanted to reduce or at least strike a deal about the apartment. He would think on it, and soon his secretary called me and said that we needn’t pay for the day we would be gone. I also tried to bring fourth a proposition about getting internet to the apartment for reduced rent but she didn’t understand so I decided that we could talk more about that when we returned. It would be nice if we had internet at the apartment since the internet spot we have is not the most convenient place plus that batteries run out. Here we have electricity and it would be great if we could chat and do our things in the apartment on the evenings since that’s around afternoon and evening in Sweden. And if one were to try to catch somebody on the chat afternoon would be the best time on the day.

Well, tomorrow we’ll get up even earlier to go to Tachikawa and then as soon as we’ve been through the ceremony and Mari has shown us the temple we will go back to the apartment and prepare for our departure to Hiroshima. Where we haven’t gotten any accomondation yet, but in worst case scenario we’ll sleep in McDonald’s. But was isn’t a trip like this without some spontaneity or a little risks?

Best Regards,
Herid Fel

1. Awesome!! ↩