Saturday--Shibuya

Today, I went to Shibuya, an area of Tokyo. Marie, the French exchange student, and Sayaka, a French student who also speaks English and a tiny bit of Spanish, went with me. At Marie's suggestion, we took our bikes to Sengawa station where we would get on the subway. So, on my bike I got, for the first time here (and probably in about 3 years), with an audience. But it went okay.

When we arrived in Shibuya, we were probably about 10 floors up and met with large windows that supplied a great view of the huge intersection below, with about 3 major and 2 or 3 minor streets meeting. The whole intersection was filled with people walking in every direction. Above them stood tall buildings hung with neon signs and jumbotron screens.
This was the Tokyo I had seen in books, on tv, and in my imagination.


Down below, we met with a bronze image of a dog named Hachiko. Hachiko used to meet his master when he got home from work at Shibuya station every night. One night his master never came home. Hachiko never gave up looking for his owner. Everynight for 10 years he returned to the station and sat and waited. (A cat would never do this. ;-) ) He is the most loyal dog in Tokyo.


The first stop was a late lunch for Marie. When I saw and smelled her bowl of Gyu-don, similar to mongolian beef on rice, I had to get my own bowl! It was great!

We began wandering the streets and shops near the station. We quickly found a few with a questionable nature (ask me if you want to know about them--Amy, you want to know about them), and the giggling began. If you know me, you know there was no end in sight. They were only embarrassed by the loudly laughing American girl a couple times.

We found a bunch of booths where you can take your picture and make stickers out of them. Of course we stopped to do it! (This is actually less touristy and more an authentic cultural experience. All of the Japanese girls do it with their friends!)


I was able to take a few pictures of busy night/evening tokyo and found Guinness Record Store, and got a pic. I also started taking pictures of funny English misspellings or signs that didnt make sense.
The first is hard to read. It is a french bakery. Marie said all of the french is wrong, but you will notice, "Sandwitches."

This is the name of a men's clothing store.