Down Omotesando Street

I went down Omotesando St. with Irina on Christmas day, after we went to Hatsudai, to go to Kiddyland and to just waste some time before we met up with my cousin Masako for dinner. 

Harajuku is apparently the main place to go if you’re shopping for trendy Japanese fashion goods. Honestly, everyone in Japan dresses in the same trend so all of the stores sell more or less the same things no matter where you go. I personally don’t see how Harajuku is any different from Shibuya, but it could just be me. I also can’t fit into anything in Japan, except for the occasional t-shirt, so I know next to nothing about where to shop for clothes in Tokyo (I’m more into silver jewelry, hats, and casual bags).

Anyway,

…there are possibly more tourists than Akihabara. 

I remember a few years ago I ate lunch at an open-air Italian restaurant with my mom in Harajuku somewhere around Takeshita-doori and we counted the number of foreigners that passed by during our lunch (I counted those coming from one direction and my mom counted from the other) and tallied them up on a memo pad. I think we wound up with like 47 or something.

Anyway, there are a few particular things on Omotesando St. that amuse me. One is Kiddyland. Another is this oddly shaped building that’s actually a Gold’s Gym or something. The other is the totally normal presence of Condomania. No, it’s not some unfortunate English naming accident; it’s completely intentional. Apparently it’s also a chain, since so far I’ve seen this one on Omotesando St. and another one that I noticed a few years ago on Center-Gai. in Shibuya.

I mean, honestly, what else would you expect to see next to a Lacoste?

 

The one advantage to Omotesando St. is that every seems to naturally walk very slowly, which is great for taking pictures. There are also a huge amount of tourists walking around so you won’t be the only slow person holding a camera.