Homeward Bound

We are back in Tokyo now, the very last installment before flying home.

To finish up our tour we first popped over to Harajuku to see what this "youth fashion" stuff was about. I know I'm not really "youth" any more, but Julie is still "youth" sized, so what the hell. The famed alley/street with all the young people's clothes (get off my lawn I say!!) was great purely from entertainment standpoint. I spotted a girl with so much metal jewelry around her mouth I could have mistaken her for a James Bond villain (hint). God forbid she try to get through an airport metal detector. On the clothes side of things, they ranged from fairly standard Japanese fashion to what can only really be described as cosplay. As I said, entertaining!

A short way from the street-o-weird, Julie bought a nice top in a store called "Brownie Bee". Apparently a lot of the clothes only come in one size, which happens to fit Julie really well. Not sure what larger women are supposed to do - probably stay away from Harajuku would be my guess.

Still undaunted, we took the train one stop over to Shibuya for further shopping craziness. After getting hopelessly lost trying to get out of the damn station, we eventually found our way outside through more luck than skill. After walking around a while we found a building called "Shibuya 109" which had signs proclaiming to have 109 restaurants inside. We thought this a little odd and popped in for a look. Well, I discovered that to the hip and fashionable people in Shibuya, restaurant actually means "women's clothing stores". Must be some sort of code or such.

Anyway, inside there are a zillion (yes, I counted) levels of boutique clothing stores centred around a never ending escalator. The styles here were once again varied, but sadly we didn't find anything international enough to capture Julie's heart. Not through lack of trying I might add.

So thus wraps up our little journey. The next task it is get to the airport and take a flight home. It has been a fun trip with lots of ups (parfait) and downs (rain) along the way.

See you in the UK!