Famous Sights and a Boatful of Vegetables (11-22-2023)
Wednesday as always featured all new adventures. Stacy, Kristen, Aaron, Josh, and myself all rallied together to get on trains and begin our commute towards various gardens in and around the grounds of the Imperial palace. Stacy could probably give you more detail herself about what everything was. These were things she was really excited to do. The garden grounds were quite pretty, and sat next to the Budokan--a famous performance venue where some of the biggest names in popular music have performed over the years.
The free gardens closer to the palace itself featured other neat things like waterfalls and koi fish.
After much walking and looking for the first couple hours, we found ourselves not too far from Harajuku and the Meiji Shrine. This would be my fifth visit to Meiji Jingu, as I've stopped by every time I've returned to Japan. We walked through the torii of the shrine first, noticing that they'd put up short fencing around the base of the gate because people apparently have been vandalizing them. The long pebble path led us past rows of flowers that seem to have been submitted as part of a contest. Reaching the shrine itself allowed us to see the largest bounty of frestly grown fruits and vegetables you've ever seen. The next day (Thursday), while being American Thanksgiving, has also become something of a Thanksgiving in Japan, although not really called that, and not exactly a national holiday. Students may end up out of school, and some people may leave work early, but that's about it. But these fruits and vegetable offerings to the shrine seemed to be for that purpose specifically, making this a very unique visit to a shrine I've already seen several times. Several spots featured vegetables piled into the shape of ships, like a cornucopia formed to look like a boat. While I was there, I bought a prayer tablet, wrote a prayer on it, and hung it up with everyone else's prayers at the shrine.
Turning around and going back, we were just a short walk away from Harajuku's famous Takeshita street. We were greeted by loud storefronts with bright and inviting clothes, and lots of street food. Although mundane, we also found an outcropping of gatchapon machines, where Josh found me some Undead Unluck keychanins. By the end of the day, I'd managed to collect five out of the seven characters featured in the machine. I still need to find the second main character, Andy!
When everyone was done browsing Harajuku, we walked back to the relatively-recently renovated Harajuku Station and hopped on the Yamanote line to go one stop over to see Shibuya, so that everybody else could experience the Shibuya Scramble crosswalk for the first time. That station is exactly as insane as I remember it. The statue of the dog Hachiko itself has become so popular, people have to get in line in order to get a picture with it. No time for that! We all crossed the street just to say we crossed the street. And then we did it again and went back inside the station, hopping back on the Yamanote line, and heading over to Shinjuku.
Josh and I had already visited Kabukicho on our first night, but now we were doing it again in order to go see Godzilla Minus One while sitting inside the Toho Theater that just so happens to also feature the large Godzilla head at the top. Not a bad film! I'd heard some back and forth about how good it was supposed to be, and some of the nationalism I'd heard about is somewhat true. But it was a well-acted film, and the Godzilla moments themselves were pretty killer. Even without going to one of the subtitled screenings, it was a pretty fascinating experience.
We ended the night by getting Wendy's, of all things. Here I was hoping they still served Frosties (which I'd previously known them in Japan as "Choco Softs"), but the Wendy's in Shinjuku didn't have them! I'm wondering of the Choco Soft has been completely eliminated from the menu now. At least I got the familiar Spicy Chicken Sandwich, although the cut of chicken was thinner than it is in the States.
That's another day full. Exciting adventures follow the next day!
