Harajuku

Got a train over to Harajuku on one of my days off, Sunday in fact. I'd read it was pretty busy there at the weekends and I wasn't disappointed!

Throngs of people were leaving the station and just hanging around in the streets, decided to skip that area initially and went into the grounds surrounding the Meiji Jingu. Had a little wander in what is a suprisingly serene area compare with the main shopping area only a few hundred meters away. Went into the shrine area too, washing my hands, making an offering and a little bit of a bow-bow, clap-clap, bow sequence to bring a bit of good luck. Some sort of wooden tablets outside that you can hang around a tree to help ill friends and relatives, didn't dabble with that though as I couldn't tell what any of them said!

Wandered around the shopping area, or should I say I was carried by the sea of people and went where they wanted to take me. Then popped back to the entrance to the shrines grounds to take a few pics of the teens. Harajuku has a well deserved reputation for being the hang-out of...hmmm shall we say...teens who don't conform on the fashion stakes. A few pretty extreme outfits but nothing too shocking. Bit like goths with more imagination!

More pics at http://s214.photobucket.com/albums/cc250/davingtonsmythe/Harajuku/

I'm a blogger!

Thought i'd move into the 21st Century and create a blog, not sure if i'll keep it up to date or what i'm gonna put here but in theory its easier than sending emails to everyone i know. Only difference is i can't make the slight changes depending on who its going to!

I'm living in Tokyo at the moment as you'll already know no doubt, just adjusting to the life of a TEFL teacher, getting used to last minute lesson changes, long hours, and late nights teaching. It not all work though (even though it sometimes feels like it!). I've been here for 2 weeks already, but as this is my first post i've thrown in a picture of my apartment taken on the first day (hence the mess!). I'll stick one pic on each post and a link to more so you can check em out if you're interested.

I'll update this retrospectively for the next few days with what i've been up to, then hopefully keep it fairly up to date after that!

More apartment pics (not that exciting, just working the image hosting thing out).
http://s214.photobucket.com/albums/cc250/davingtonsmythe/Apartment/