Monday, July 14, 2014

July 22; Hello Harajuku!

Day 15
Youth dressed in exuberant colours, frilly frocks and hair pieces flock to Harajuku on weekends. The Harajuku fashion was made popular to the western audience by Gwen Stefani and her entourage of Harajuku Girls.

In the stereotypical North American high schools, you've got your "freshmen, ROTC guys, preps, J.V. jocks, asian nerds, cool Asians, Varsity jocks unfriendly black hotties, girls who eat their feelings, girls who don't eat anything, desperate wannabes, burnouts, sexually active band geeks," etc etc. In Japan, you've got your harajuku girls as one of the many subcultures in youth culture. High school students in Japan wear uniforms, and so weekends are the optimal time for them to express themselves in their funky fashion.

On our journey to find the Harajuku girls:
so much shopping! We stopped here to shop for a bit

We saw a parade of colour so we followed them hoping to get to the famous Harajuku bridge where adolescence hang out in their sweet costumes.  They ended up taking us deep into the streets of harajuku with speciality stores filled with lolita things, vintage boutiques, Americanized shops, galleries, and cafes.  They stopped for a short photoshoot and then dispersed.
We eventually found our way to the Harajuku Bridge but unfortunately there were no costumed people on the bridge at that time but at least we got to see the parade. But anyways, next adventure! Yogogi park!
making wishes
On Sundays, Yogogi Park is a place where entertainers and friends gather to put on shows for anyone who is willing to listen/watch. Kinda like buskers, except they don't do it for money.
Its also just a really nice play to chill and blow bubbles.
major jam session

The park attracts many foreigners as well. Here are three of them: 
 


Toronto needs a place like this.

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