We woke up early to do some more relaxed temple visits to start the day. We decided to walk from our airbnb in Shibuya to Harajuku, not more than 20 minutes away. It was a really pleasant walk, and we found quite a few pedestrian parks and streets.

We enter Meiji shrine through the Harajuku entrance. Meiji Shrine is a shrine erected for the emperor Meiji and his empress. Meiji was one of the most beloved emperors of Japan because he brought a lot of prosperity to Japan by opening it up to trade with the west. Meiji shrine is smack dab in the middle of Tokyo in a huge park. Japan is so full of contrasts and this is a very good example of that. While you are inside the temple, it is really hard to tell that you are in the middle of the biggest city in the world.

I had visited Meiji shrine four times, but it was Jives’ second time there. The forest is so beautiful and peaceful, you really need to visit it if you are in Tokyo. Maybe skip Asakusa and Sensoji temple (it’s so touristy now, unless you visit in the night time) if you can only make time to see one shrine, and see Meiji instead.

Next we stopped in Harajuku to see if my favourite underwear store was open, it wasn’t… it would open at 11am which was too long to wait. It was nice seeing Harajuku with zero crowds. We wandered the main Takeshita street, took some photos at a neat mural that was Harajuku themed and then stopped at a cafe for coffee and breakfast. We both got a toast set with a boiled egg and coffee. Jives got corn soup as well. It was actually pretty cheap considering we were right on Takeshita street. 

Next we jumped on the Yamanote line to Yoyogi station one stop away to transfer to the Chou line to Nakano Broadway. We exited on the South side and walked to Nakano dori. Most of the shops didn’t open until 12 noon, but because we were early we were able to take quite a few videos/rap takes. I bought a skirt and sweater for 900 Yen each and Jives visited a pottery shop where he bought two sake cups that looked very handmade and beautiful. The cups cost 300 Yen each which is pretty cheap for handmade pottery. We then headed back to Nakano dori to go to Mandarake shops and some figurine shops.

After spending an hour looking around, we headed out to explore the izakaya shops around Nakano. We liked the quirky restaurants and street art/ stickers, but we quickly became overwhelmed with the Saturday crowds.

We then took the Chou line to Akihabara to try and check out some nerd shops. First we had our sights on finding food. We went into a CoCo Curry shop and ordered two curry dishes and two beers. Japanese curry is more hardy than other asian curry, and sort of like a stew with rice on one side and curry on the other side. CoCo Curry lets you customise your curry quite a lot. You chose your base: veggie, pork, beef and then your rice volume. Next you choose your spice level and veggies/meats. You can add a lot of things. I got the veggie base, added winter veggies (pumpkin etc) on top and went with 300 g of rice and level 3 spice. Jives got the pork base with pork sausage and winter veggies at a level 7 spice. Coco Curry never disappoints! The bill came to about 3000 Yen ($30). 

We then wandered around Akihabara and briefly went to Super Potato (nerd game shop). The crowds were just too much for us, so we left not too long after. We took the Yamanote line back to Shibuya and relaxed at our airbnb for a bit before grabbing two Asahi and heading to the rooftop of Miyashita Park to sit and watch trains go by, and youths do the tik toks…. Like everyone was filming tik toks. Two boys sitting near us were so adorable and kept doing take after take, laughing and enjoying themselves. 

Afterwards we headed to the One Piece store… on the way up the escalator we found a second hand vinyl shop, what Jives’ dreams are made of. We spent quite a bit of time there going through vinyl which was really fun. I looked through all the 100 Yen vinyl and chose three records pretty much at random. Jive bought: Herbie Hancock “Trio”, Casio Pea “Mint Jams”, Casio Pea “Jive-Jive”, King Crimson “Starless and Bible Black”, Bob James “ Foxie”, Freddie Hubbard “Ride like the Wind” and Art Blakey “Caravan” which came to about 10400 Yen for ten albums. Next we went to the Mugiwara store, which was much smaller than usual. We then headed to a sushi place for one last sushi meal and then back to our Airbnb to pack and go to sleep.