Closed temple

Work on Monday finished earlier than expected, and I had time to stop by the Meiji Shrine. Which was closed, though.

Strangely numbered crepes

In Harajuku there is a place that is famous for crepes. They sell crepes with sweet toppings, and crepes with other things (sausages and lettuce, for example). The others ordered fairly normal sounding things like banana and chocolate or strawberry and whipped cream, so I ordered the Japanese looking one with rice balls, sweet beans, and bitter green tea ice cream.

One thing that was a bit strange was the display case. The crepes were conveniently numbered, so you did not have to be able to pronounce the Japanese name of whatever crepe you wanted, you could just order it by the number. And the staff knew enough English to understand numbers, I think. But the ordering of the display items (or the numbering of the menu items) seemed completely random. 77, 52, 76, 57... We first thought that maybe it was the popularity order, but there was a separate list with the popularity ranking, which was again different.

Meiji Jingu shrine, weddings and weirdoes

White wedding kimono and suits. The mother's of the groom and bride normally wear black kimonos, as in the background.

Wedding photography in traditional hakama (groom) and red kimono (bride)

Another wedding procession

For some more Japanese culture, we stopped by Meiji Jingu shrine. This is a very beautiful Shinto shrine in Tokyo, that gets millions of visitors per year. Since we were there on a Sunday, there were lots of weddings going on at the shrine. We saw at least three different wedding parties walking through the shrine area.

There were some bonsai trees on display too

Right outside Meiji Jingu shrine there is also normally a collection of young people wearing weird clothes. Since it was cold by Tokyo standards (we all walked around in short sleeves, though), there were not that many of them standing around, but we saw a few of these fashion subculture youngsters. I like this fashion, but it does look a bit weird. These photos are not people dressed up for Halloween, they dress more or less like this every week (though the pumpkin theme does show that they have adjusted a bit to the season).

Typical Harajuku dress

Jonas the fashion adviser

Me, in a funny shirt

I wore a shirt that says: "I am not Japanese" both in English and in Japanese, and stopped by the shop where I bought that shirt. While looking for new funny shirt there, an American (?) tourist told me "I love your shirt". I said that I had bought it in this shop, and that they probably still had them.

He became excited and we looked for one for him too. We found one, but it was size small. He wanted XL, so we asked the young guy working there if he had larger sizes. He went away and looked and came back with a shirt in size L. This was the largest size they had of the "I am not Japanese" design. Some other shirts they had in XL too.

I said that since I am wearing a size S shirt, L might work for him. He then asked if it would be OK for him to try the shirt on. I have never seen anyone try on a t-shirt before, but he said he would buy the shirt if it fit, and the guy in the shop also thought it would probably fit, so he said fine. This shop is outside, in the middle of a small square, so the big guy just undressed then and there and tried on the shirt. It seemed to fit him well, though if it shrinks later it would probably be too small.

Guy who bought the same funny shirt (in a larger size)

He thanked me for the help, and asked me to check how he looked in another shirt he also wanted to buy. He tried on a shirt with Mount Fuji in size XL, and I snuck a picture of him doing so. I said it looked OK on him, and he bought that too.

Recently, there has been a sharp increase in people asking me for fashion advice. The number of people who think you would have to be a complete idiot to even think of asking me for such advice remains on a constant very high level, though.

Funny t-shirts, rude t-shirts, obscene t-shirts, Pedo-Bear t-shirts, boob size t-shirts

Shit on a stick t-shirt

I saw lots of strange t-shirts in Tokyo. I bought one that has a picture of shit on a stick and that says: うんこ ("unko", which means shit in Japanese). I am going to give this as a gift to a Japanese woman I know. I would not normally give shit themed gifts to women, but this woman claims she loves all things with unko.

Frozen t-shirt

I bought a shirt for myself that has the last line of the hit song "Let it go!" from the movie "Frozen", both the English version ("The cold never bothered me anyway") and the Japanese version (that says something like: "It does not feel even a little bit cold [to me]"). I reckon this will be useful in the winter, when I walk around in the snow in only a t-shirt. If people ask me: "Aren't you could?!", I can just point to my shirt to save time. This will come in very handy, I am sure.

Disney princesses t-shirts

I want a shirt with the Disney princesses making funny faces (bottom one). I have seen this drawing before, and I like it. This was only sold in the size "Japanese girl", which is a really really small size, though.

Lots of strange t-shirts

I found a place with lots of shirts with text in Japanese. Taking a closer look, there is one whole row (second row from the top) dedicated to bust sizes:

The green shirt reads "爆乳", which means "enormous boobs". The English text indicates that the wearer has a cup size of G or larger.

The red shirt reads "美乳", which means beautiful boobs. The English text just says "gorgeous boobs".

The orange shirt reads "並乳", which means "normal boobs". In English it says: "C & D are just good sizes. The tits size fits my hand perfectly." The Japanese cup size scale is slightly different from the Western scale, I am told, so "C & D" here means "B & maybe C" by Western standards, or so the experts tell me.

The yellow shirt reads "微乳", which according to my dictionary means "small breasts" (the pronunciation is the same as for the "gorgeous boobs", but instead of the kanji for beautiful it has the kanji for "minute, insignificant", which happens to be read the same). The English text says: "flat boobs" and "AA,, size or less... be virtually non-existent".

The blue shirt reads "貧乳", which according to my dictionary means "tiny breasts". The English text says: "Tiny Tits" and "The size of a person of A & B. I don't care about it!". My dictionary seems to sort the last two in the opposite order, but both mean small.

A suggestive Venn diagram

I saw a t-shirt with a Venn diagram. On the left it says "normal people" and on the right it says "otaku" (which is the Japanese word for "nerd", with a strongly negative nuance). The arrow points to the overlapping part and says: "I'm around here".

Pedobear battling Ronald McDonald. The text says "Bear claw".

Pedobear on a diet. The text says: "Don't loose too much weight" (or "Let's go on a diet but not overdo it").

For some reason, the shop that sold the Frozen t-shirt and had lots of cute animal shirts also sold t-shirts with Pedobear. I am not sure I would use that character on shirts if I had to design shirts for a living...

Harajuku, Takeshita Dori

Takeshita Dori, covered in tourists

On Monday, the typhoon had passed up towards Sapporo, so the weather in Tokyo was great (though too hot for me). I woke up too early and had about an hour to kill before going to the airport and flying back to Sapporo to work.

Sunny weather

I stopped by Harajuku, which is an area in Tokyo where they have crazy fashion. They also have expensive fancy fashion, but I generally just visit the Takeshita Dori street, which has only the crazy stuff. Apparently, young people with strange tastes in clothes actually shop there, but you mainly see tourists there. On weekends you can see some of the people who dress in the kind of things sold in Takeshita street too.

Crazy colorful fashion

Clothes for stage performances (presumably)

"Western" clothes (paintings of Christ etc.)

Disney princesses with funny messages. I really wanted the one with the princesses doing funny faces, but it was only available in Japanese girl size (which is really small).

Hatsune Miku costume (Hatsune Miku is from Sapporo), and doll costumes.

Harajuku, strange shirts and people going to the shrine

This street is also crowded, but not nearly as crowded as the ones leading to Meiji Jingu

On my way to the airport I mad a 10 minute stop at Harajuku to see if they had any new funny t-shirts there. Harajuku is famous for having young girls with weird clothes posing for tourists, but it is also where the Meiji Jingu shrine is located. At New Year, Japanese people go to the shrine for "hatsumode", and Meiji Jingu gets incredible amounts of people (several millions in a few days). This meant that the station was overcrowded and it was difficult to get off or on the train.

Funny t-shirts, and a girl in clothes similar to what you might expect in Harajuku

I did not find very much in the ways of funny t-shirts, but I bought one that said "いいね", which is what Facebook says in Japanese for the "like"-button.

My t-shirt

Tokyo, the otaku (nerd) heaven

If you want a school uniform with a very very short skirt, they were on sale.

When I booked my tickets for the Tokyo meeting trip I still did not know when the meeting would end, so I booked a return flight fairly late so I would be sure not to miss it. As it turned out, the meeting ended earlier than I had expected, and I had a few hours in Tokyo.

Tourists in Harajuku

One of the slightly strange fashion trends from Harajuku is these kind of doll dresses. Though I saw only a few people wearing them (excepting staff in shops selling such clothes). They mostly show up on weekends.

I went to Harajuku and Akihabara. These two districts are both Meccas of nerds, though nowadays there are more tourists going to check out the nerd culture than there are nerds. In Harajuku you have the "dress like a doll"-fashion girly nerds. This is also were I buy my weird t-shirts.

Tourists in Akihabara

Anime t-shirt, colored hair, nerd souvenirs in bag; a typical group of westerner anime nerds.

In Akihabara you used to have the electronics nerds (and there is still some of that left) but now it is mostly anime/manga nerd stuff there. And "maid cafes", which is closely related to anime nerd culture. Cafes or bars (or brothel type places) where girls work wearing the Japanese interpretation of a French Maid costume, speak with very high pitched voices, and act very subservient.

I saw lots of tourists, and some nerds.

Electronics sold by the kilo etc.

Girls trying to get customers to different Maid Cafes.

Akihabara is also home to AKB48, a music/dance group of young girls (like 16 to 24 years old?) singing and dancing in very short skirts and showing their panties. Very popular and selling massive amounts of CDs. They have a cafe and a shop in Akihabara, and there were lots of people waiting outside.

There was also a Gundam cafe, next to the AKB48 cafe. Gundam is an old and very famous manga and anime series (though I have not seen it myself). There was at least a small line waiting outside this place too.