The Rolling Stone

An action-packed day! This morning we awoke at the crack of 8am and by skipping breakfast entirely we managed to leave the hotel by 9:15. We were heading for the Harajuku district. We had a yen go shopping. Well, more than one fortunately, as a single yen does not get you very much. Thanks to early birthday presents from Mum, we all had some spending yen and it was burning holes in our respective pockets.

For those who don’t know of it, the Harajuku district is described by the bible (i.e. the lonely planet guide) as containing “the epi-centre of Japan’s ever-shifting youth trends, and its famed culture of kawaii (cuteness)”. It’s a place to get cheap trendy clothes, Pokémon plushies, beautiful souvenirs, and funky T-shirts. A shopping paradise for our family.

But before we could hit the shops we had a pre-booked appointment at the mipig cafe.

This is an example of Japan’s animal “cafes”. Although some of these establishments do serve food, they are mostly about getting up close with a cute animal. In this case, miniature pigs!

We were shown into a large room full of pigs ranging in size from small to adorably tiny.

This had been Hayley’s idea, and to say that she was excited would be a substantial understatement.

We were shown into a smaller space where we got two tiny pigs all to ourselves.

We took turns having the pigs on our laps. The two piggies seemed to like lying on top of one another.

After a little while we were given two slightly older pigs, still only 5 months.

I took many more pictures than this, but you get the gist. It was a lot of fun.

However, by this time we were all getting very hungry. Finding a decent actual cafe was a little tricky, but we finally managed to get a reasonable meal and then plunged into shopping. The following is just a sample of our haul:

There were some items that were out of our price range though:

So shopping had been very successful, but there was an unexpected bonus. Although Hayley had been delighted with the mini pig cafe, she had really wanted to do an otter cafe, but couldn’t find one online. Fortunately…

Yes that’s right, we happened across an otter cafe and, after a quick dash to an ATM to replenish our yen, we went in.

Again I took way more pictures than I can sensibly fit in this blog, but here’s a few more:

The otters moved like puddles on a sugar high and felt like cats only smoother. It was fun, but we had one last thing to do today.

Just a short walk away was Tokyo’s largest shrine, Meiji-jingu. To get there we walked under a massive torii (entrance gateway) and along a path through a forest where the sounds of the city quickly faded.

It’s difficult to give an idea in photos of the scale of the torii, but here’s my attempt:

Along the way we passed beautiful lanterns, a wall of prayer wheels, and a stack of wine barrels (honouring international cooperation by remembering Emperor Meiji’s love of a good French drop).

The shrine itself was spectacular. A grand entrance led to a courtyard with two enormous and perfectly domed trees. Over all of it glimpses of the surrounding city’s skyscrapers could be seen.

Beautiful architecture was everywhere, the doors, the roofs, the side courtyards, even the lamps.

Under one of the huge trees was a place where you could hang prayers. They were in an array different languages; of those I could read, many were sweet, some were sad.

Finally it was time to head back

Under the massive torii

And the tree canopy

Along the path

As the lanterns began to light up

Tired

But happy