J2: Erika, Harajuku, Shibuya and the Isakaya

Today Erika arrived at the apartment. Erika is an English teacher from Korea (originally Californian) who came to Japan for only five days instead of a week (due to the whole teaching thing). I would include a picture here, but I have a better one that I will introduce tomorrow (insert evil laugh here).

Anyway, moving on, we all decided to go (or rather to walk to) Harajuku today. Harajuku is the "fashion" capital of Japan, but as that is a very subjective term, I included the quotation marks. See for yourself:

3 pictures taken from one overpass. Needless to say,
there were many more Harajuku girls to be admired!

We also found some interesting food in Harajuku:

Strange panda pastries


Crepe masquerading as an ice cream cone. Nonetheless, it
was a very delicious (but much less nutricious) lunch!

And last but not least, Harajuku's Condomania, the store devoted pretty much entirely to guess what (Just a hint - not condominiums!!!).

Condomania.

After our afternoon in Harajuku, we headed over to Shibuya, which I like to call the Japanese Time Square.

This place is jammed with stores, restos, people and more importantly Izakayas! From what I gathered, Izakayas come in 2 main varieties: drinking and eating. In the drinking type, you pay a fee (I think it was 15$ a person or so) and then your group is brought to a curtained-off table in the Izakaya for two hours. There, one is entitled to as much alcohol as one wants (including amazing sake!!!) and orders somewhat (but not unreasonably) priced food. Lots of fun! The second type will be explained later.

I would include pictures, but they happen to be on someone else's hard drive at this time.