(In Fee's latest blog post, she made a comment about my blog being up to date and concise. Though they seem to me to be far from concise I will try to uphold these characteristics, but if I'm too tired I'll follow what she's done and just list things.)

I'm going to make this one brief because I need to go to bed ASAP so that I'll wake up early enough to leave the dorm at quarter to 7 tomorrow morning to get to my 9am class in time.

Yesterday, Chee Seng, Eszter, William, Sherif, Frant, Jenna and I went to the imperial palace grounds. The weather was great - not too warm and a breeze kept me cheery, very sunny, and it was perfect for strolling through gardens and around ponds. (I'll add photos another time.) It's like Regents Park in that the lay out seems planned in such a way so that photographs look really lovely. Especially with the old buildings dotted around.

We only saw about half of the grounds because when we got hungry and finding somewhere nearby that sold food proved difficult we decided to have a picnic at Yoyogi Koen instead. We ate by the big fountains and people-watched. The most noticeable thing we found was that all dogs being walked were tiny. There was a middle-aged couple with five dogs between them: 3 in the stroller and 2 walking beside them.

We didn't spend long there as we wanted to see Harajuku. On the way out of the park we saw three gangs dressed in different fashions from around the 50s and dancing to 50s music. Just beyond them were park gates and to get beyond the footbridge that takes you across the road, we had to shuffle as there were so many people streaming in both directions - towards and out of the park. Then we passed a great torii (I don't remember whose memorial it led to), crossed a bridge and met another sea of people trying to get into the station. Across the road was a massive (bigger than any single clothes shop I've seen in London) Gap store. omg. It had its own building, all windows and had three floors! Oddly, coming to Harajuku made me crazy over things we have in London yet wasn't so keen on. For example, Jenna, Eszter and I looked around the Accessorize store with wide eyes at all the pretty sparkly and feathery things (which were double the price back home), and none of us are even all that into dressing up. There's something about Japan that's made Eszter buy pink items and a headband with a big bow, and me want to squeal at the kawaiiii things.

I would liken Harajuku to Camden town for the kinds of fashions it is most visited for. There is one street that gets most of the attention in the area and we walked through making only three stops. The first was at the crepe place - Chee Seng pretty much hurried us to there (and I must post a photo of them stuffing their faces), the second is this kind of gothic lolita shop to which Jenna and I ran up the stairs to see (omg there were some nice dresses for only £15!) and the last was so that Chee Seng could take a photograph of a plane inside a shop.

Afterwards we made our way back round to the station. The guys are so lovely they let us see the whole of Accessorize. I sensibly walked out without buying anything, though I tried everything. Next weekend we're going to see Akihabara and let the guys go mental over the electronics.