My trip was drawing to a close so what was left?  Having one more full day I decided to go to Harajuku.  Honestly, I’d always heard that it was the area of Tokyo where on Sundays, young people dress up in gothic, cosplay, or other styles and spend the day walking through Harajuku’s streets; specifically gathering on the Jingu Bridge, a bridge that connects Harajuku with the Meiji Shrine (明治神宮).  Getting to Harajuku from Kojimachi took about 20 minutes, just because I missed one of my connecting trains that was departing as I was walking downstairs to the station’s platform.  Once arriving in Harajuku, I noticed an unending amount of young people, often with at least 4 people in their group, walking around and entering the many shops and restaurants that line the area.  As I walked, I took a right at the end of the street and saw a long line of women who were waiting to enter a store that seemed to have a few signs indicating a sale.  Next to it, I saw a “mall” that was connecting with this store, it is called Laforet Harajuku (ラフォーレ原宿).  I was stunned by all the color indicating, “Hello Kitty Colors at Laforet”, they were obviously also celebrating the 35^th anniversary of Hello Kitty – as were many stores in and around Tokyo.  Regardless of the celebration, Laforet needs no reason to feature these bright colors.  Laforet Harajuku is known for being on the cutting edge of young street fashion.  There are many floors with anywhere from 6-14 stores that cater to both men and women (mainly women, hahaha) and sell outer and inner clothing, shoes, accessories, etc.  The clothing stores/stalls all have their own decoration and style and many choose to use bright colors, neons, wall paintings, etc to grab your attention.

One of the main intersections within Harajuku

Laforet Harajuku (ラフォーレ原宿) from the outside

Decorated canvases decorating the interior...interesting - I'm sure this changes up often

Tou can see part of the line there, and some of the boyfriends/husbands waiting there too!! hahaha

What I love about Laforet are the individually designed stores within the building.  As I explained in a previous post, Tokyo’s “mall” structure often includes independent clothing sellers that, most likely, rent out a space and are allowed to sell their line or independent lines of clothing.  Not only are the stores in Laforet selling their own clothing brand(s), but their stalls or “store” designs reflect the nature of the owners, clothing brand, or the culture that they represent.  You can pretty much account for every Tokyo sub-culture and styles.  For example: one store called GR8 (グレイト) was selling custom shoes (Nike, Adidas, Converse, etc), and their store featured neon lights, indy urban music, and also sold t-shirts, sport coats, custom headphones, books on collecting shoes, book bags, etc.

GR8's (グレイト) line of books on collecting shoes - I've actually seen these books before, pretty cool!

The GR8 (グレイト) store front - neons, nice touch!

Not only are the colors cool, but their cut-outs are AWESOME, even using one as a clothing rack

So many to choose from! I'm pretty sure they have every color covered

WOW, some crazy color combinations - I see you AI! lol

Very simple store front but the pattern and colors grab your attention

Yes, even Care Bears are sold in Laforet

The Hello Kitty anniversary sure had a lot of specials running all over Tokyo...no different here

Even the stairs and elevators were pretty cool.  The stairs were almost directly in the middle of Laforet which connected all the floors (and half-floors too).  I’m sure you’re asking yourself what the heck is a half-floor?  Literally, Laforet features floors: 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, etc (up to 5 then there is no 5.5 but goes to…6?).  Each floor features stores but the “half-floors” (ending in .5) often featured fewer stores since there is less floor space on those floors (their floor guide).  Also, another cool thing to note was that the floors with more stores had very unique paths to walk around.  See, if you think of the letter “C”, that is pretty much the way Laforet had stores on each integer or whole numbered floor.  So, the stores rode along the walls of Laforet, but in the middle, they also featured a few stores.  This way, each floor made a half-donut, so if you came up to a floor and went to the right, you’d eventually circle around to see all the stores and then come out on the left side and then go up the stairs in the middle again.  Not only were the stores uniquely designed, but they also were different sizes and arranged differently, so this “C-path” around the floor also changed slightly.  Regardless, you still would make your way back to the stairs on the opposite side of where you entered the area.  The half floors often just had a straight path that might curve around a bit, but only featured 4-6 stores, so thus didn’t make a entire “C-path”.

Cool Stairs, they even have mirrors to see yourself as you walk up

Even the elevators are uniquely designed

Anyways, after spending some time in Laforet, I headed out to the main street and began walking around again.  I saw an H&M next so I decided to go in.  Wow, H&M was packed with people and of course, they had four floors, three of which were designated to women…and the men got the basement.  With no other choice, I took the stairs downstairs to see that it too was busy with shoppers.  I looked around and saw a few shirts that I liked.  But unfortunately, there was a line for the dressing room, so I decided to just try on the clothing out on the main sales floor.  No one seemed to care, and in fact, some other guys were doing the same!  So I tried about 5 or 6 shirts, 2 jackets, and a couple dress shirts.  The smalls and mediums there are much smaller, I find, than those same sizes in the United States.  Plus, the shirts do not stretch around the upper back and shoulders, which is the only area that I often felt it tight.  I had to settle for larger sizes, which were less stocked, but fortunately I wasn’t settling for huge shirts like U.S. larges and x-larges.  I also noticed this at the H&M stores in Spain, but I guess I forgot (and I’ve never been to the H&M stores in the U.S. – so maybe it’s the same at all the locations).  In the end, I settled on 3 shirts and jumped in line to pay.  I honestly had to fake it again and just nod at every statement that the cashier made.  Luckily I timed it correctly and swiped my debit card at the right time.

Inside a store packed with people

The Men get the B1 treatment

Leaving H&M, I headed towards Takeshita Street (竹下通り), one of the main avenues in Harajuku that features a lot of independent stores with tons of shopping opportunities.  When entering Takeshita Street, I looked to try to see the other side but all I saw was a horde of young people.  Everyone was talking with friends, carrying shopping bags, texting on their phones…a pretty cool sight to see.  I walked down the street, and about half-way down, there were a group of Nigerian men who looked sketched-out.  They were hassling everyone and asking people to go check out the merchandise they were selling at their stands.  One guy actually asked me and I told him that I was “ok” and then he kept walking beside me telling me that I was being rude.  I asked him, “in what way am I being rude if all I said was that I was ok and continued walking…that is more than what some people are giving…most don’t even say anything.”  He said, “but you understand.”  So apparently he thinks that I owe him my time since I understood what he was saying.  Oddly enough, I stopped at a stall, and of course, the guy owned it…what are the odds?  He said that he and his family owned about eight of these small stalls.  In the end, we started chit-chatting and in the end, we shook hands and went our separate ways.  He obviously went back to the intersection of people to begin his job again.

One of the streets leading up to Takeshinta Street (竹下通り)

A very large sign to let you know you've entered Takeshita Street (竹下通り)

Wolfgang Puck even has his hands over in Harajuku, hahaha

Some stores are as simple as that...what happens if it rains!?

A lot of French influence in names of places...

After that, I went into a few stores, of my own accord and actually liked the clothing I saw.  In one store, I bought three long-sleeve shirts, in another store I bought a purple muffler scarf.  The prices were not bad at all, but I’ll admit, it was difficult to find my size again.  Oh, and the funny thing was, as I was about to enter a dressing room with a few shirts, I was approached by a store clerk who told me that I could not enter the dressing room to try on the shirts.  He told me that I could try on the pants and coats, but the t-shirts were not to be worn inside the store.  The odd thing, they had a “no return” policy…so how the heck was I suppose to know the fitting.  He told me that that was common in the area.  Well, fortunately, I had a haunch that the shirts would fit; I just wanted to see if the colors and designs looked good with my complexion.  I asked him if I could use the mirror and lay the shirt across my body to see how it would look me.  He said that that was fine and so I proceeded to do so and realized that two of the shirts were in fact too small once opened up all the way, but that the other three looked good and would fit; those are the three long-sleeve t-shirts that I bought.

Another shote of the sign, it kind of funnels people

What a crowded street!

And the people go on forever!

So many signs, how do you distingquish them all? hahaha

Tama Depa, interactive Tamagotchi shop

Harajuku St...it had a lot of pretty cool stores down there too

When you see funky signs like these, you have to go check what's down the street!

After leaving the store, I walked around and entered a few more stores.  I left Takeshita Street and went around a corner and found an ABC Mart (a common shoe store) that had a pair of purple Vans shoes that I really liked.  They were on sale for 3000 yen but I wasn’t entirely sure, so I told myself I’d come back later.  I then decided to check out another area of the Harajuku district.  I saw a sign that read Harajuku St so I went that way and found an abundance of more restaurants and of course a lot of vendors selling clothing, shoes, skateboards.  Once I got out of there, I passed Omotesando Hills, but can you believe I didn’t really realize it until later on.  Omotesando Hills is a large shopping complex (“mall”) that has shops, restaurants, cafés, and beauty salons.  This district slightly outside of Harajuku’s main attraction is very high end.  I saw Louis Vuitton, Couch, Gucci, and a lot of independent designers but with massive stores that had very dressed up people walking in – horrible descriptor I know, but these people seemed a bit uppity if you ask me

Near Omotesando Hills...again, thousands of people doing their shopping and hanging out

Something that I and a couple hundred other people noticed was the smell of something burning.  Soon after, I hear a couple sets of sirens in the distance as emergency vehicles are making their way to the site.  I kept walking, went up the street, crossed at the intersection, and made my way back, but on the opposite side.  As I was arriving, so were the fire-fighters and police.  By this point, you could barely see as white smoke had begun to pour out into the streets.  A lot of people were coughing and everyone was looking to see where it was coming from.  The funny thing, a bus of older Japanese tourists were getting out to do some shopping, and all of them got off making a face and covering their faces with small hand towels…awe…

The b6 JINGUMAE building is pretty cool

Even the Audi store in Harajuku is pretty cool

Once you realize you can’t really see all that much, not like flames were coming out of the building, but I’m sure it was within considering the amount of smoke to fill a 4-6 lane street, not to mention tired of breathing in smoke, I left the area to go back to the hipper side of harajuku…and to go get those shoes.  That’s right, I made up my mind.  Once I got back, it was a very simple in-and-out procedure, I didn’t want to fuss over any other shoes, because I know I would have…given the opportunity that is.

Filed under: Travel by Giancarlo Deleon