We pressed on exploring the East Side of Harijuku with it's many second hand clothes shops and quirky cafes, one thing we just couldn't understand was why the Japanese spend so much time in queues for bubble tea!?!
We crossed the road and hit the super crazy busy Takeshita-dori Street. This famous street is about 400 metres in length and there are hundreds of youngsters and tourists exploring the many crepe, candy and yet more second hand clothes shops.... This street I'd say eptimised the atmosphere of the Shibuya area which is very on trend with the teenaged crowd in Tokyo.
We managed to find an absolute diamond of a Mexican restaurant round the back of Takeshita-dori called Chillis, I believe a family run restaurant and I had one of the nicest burritos I've had since visiting Mexico a couple of years earlier... Not what I expected to find but we were glad as we were running on empty after the night before.
Once we recharged our batteries we headed into the Meiji shrine although templed and shrined out from Kyoto and the North we were over that way and decided to make a brief stop. Meiji shrine is famous for the first Torii gate and is a reasonably nice shrine to walk around and more importantly free.
We spotted what looked to be the ultimate ice cream and shake cafe, Cookie Time (apparently its big in NZ) the other evening when walking back and given its proximity to the park and my sweet tooth we headed back toward Harijuku. I was not disappointed after a short wait there was so much choice, I ended up with a freak shake (if I'd lost any weight on holiday it was now certainly back on again... but so worth it). Laura had a cookie dough ice-cream but I feel like won on the greed front.
Before our sugar coma kicked in we head to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building to get a FREE view over Tokyo City although only the South Observatory was open as the North was closed for renovations. We were there late afternoon and it took around a 30 minutes to get to the lift to take you to the 45th floor, once at the top you got great views over the city not quite 360 as the North Tower blocked... the North view surprisingly...
As we detoured for an ice-cream and a milkshake earlier we'd skipped Yoyogi Park so decided to walk it from the Government Building which felt like an eternity, probably because we'd walked a fair bit already and our sugar coma had kicked in! The park itself wasn't the prettiest but there were quite a few people there enjoying the Tokyo sun and it had a couple of nice water features... You could easily skip it though but it also provided an alternative route back to Shibuya where we also experienced the craziness of the crossing once again although I think it wasn't as crazy as normal given that it was Golden Week.
That evening we decided to go back to explore the bright lights of Shibuya and Shinjuku to try some DECENT famous Japanese BBQ Kobe beef. We'd found a restaurant earlier called Han No Daidokoro and as it was late we decided to just go for it.... So unlike us as we often spend half the evening wondering round until starving trying to find the right restaurant before going back to the first one we saw! We each had a set menu of 5 varieties including back and rump, salad, rice, pickled cucumber and roast beef, dried seaweed and a drink. The beef was high quality and the price reasonable (£40 per person) for Japan but you just want more of it.
Next we decided to have a better look around the Shinjuku area as we rushed to get food and go to the Robot Restaurant so spent time wandering the streets before grabbing a beer in a bar on Golden Gai.
