Harajuku

We met up with Jenny and her family this morning to go shopping on Takeshita Street. Harajuku is a place that I've dreamed of visiting ever since I started reading FRUiTS Magazine in University and it was just as bright and colourful as I imagined. Jenny told us to take a second look at the street name as I'd been too distracted by the amazing balloon art to notice the joke in Takeshita which means under the bamboo in Japanese.

As I'd expected, Harajuku was a lot like Camden and filled with shops selling crazy fashion and accessories. Though we spotted some adorable lolita outfits, noone was dressed as colourfully as they used to be in FRUiTS. Jenny told me that they've banned everyone from getting dressed up and meeting on the bridge where the used to hang out on the weekends.

I got a little keyring of a vomiting cat from a vending machine which was filled entirely with cats throwing up vomit in every colour of the rainbow.

Takeshita Street is famous for it's crepes which are gigantic and come filled with every type of ingredient you can imagine from salmon and creme cheese to a whole slice of cheesecake. We shared an almond joy crepe which was amazing and super filling.

We were giggling about Avril Lavigne's awful new music video which is set in Japan when we stumbled upon the candy shop which is featured in the video. It had the song playing on repeat which must have been sending the staff crazy.

I got an amazing pair of Hello Kitty scissors from the shop next door which was selling Sanrio goodies. I'm tempted to start a collection of cool scissors from all over the world for the CO+K office.

We continued our shopping in Harajuku's vintage shops where we got the geekiest pair of glasses. I find shopping so boring in the UK but it was so much fun in Tokyo.

Jenny then took us to Kiddy Land which was a giant shop filled with toys and character goodies.

Tom treated himself to a Nano Block Shinkansen and Miffy while I got the kitty piggy bank I've been wanting for ages. It's so adorable!

It started raining, so we took shelter in the FUJIFILM Wonder Photo Shop which was filled with Instax cameras, films and photo machines.

We decided to get some photos printed to kill time until the rain stopped. Jenny managed to break her machine, so she didn't get to print hers.

We then went for lunch at the Alice In Wonderland Restaurant which I had read about and couldn't wait to check out. There are a few of them around Tokyo but the Shibuya one was nice and close so we walked to that.

It was really pretty inside with spinning clocks, carousel tables and waitresses dressed like Alice.

Even our food was themed and my parfait looked like a Cheshire Cat.

It was then time to make our way across the famously busy Shibuya crossing. Luckily Jenny was dressed so colourfully that there was no way we could lose her in the crowd.

When we made it to the other side, we were stopped by a reported and interviewed for Japanese TV about the souvenirs we'd bought that day. Tom talked about his Shinkansen Nano Blocks, I talked about my Hello Kitty scissors, Jenny talked about her Japanese football shirt and Robert talked about his vending machine figurine balls. It was surreal and I'd love to see the footage one day.

We continued our shopping in Shibuya and stopped in to the Disney Store where Japan has it's very own Disney idol in the form of a creepy bear with eyelashes.

They had a life size version of Andy's bedroom from Toy Story and some awesome backpacks which had built in hoods.

After all of the shopping, everyone was ready for a drink so Jenny took us to Kirin City where they serve frozen beer with icy foamy heads. It was kind of like a frozen margarita that tasted really strange.

I'd read that there was a new craze in Tokyo to have bars with real penguins in and knew we had to check it out. Jenny looked it up and made us reservations. The sign on the outside said "The Bar In Which Penguins Are Present" and there was an enclosure at the back with four penguins in.

The penguins were so adorable swimming around and everything was penguin themed from our cocktails to the origami hot towels they handed out.

The best part of all was when we got to feed the penguins and they waddled over to see us. They were so cute.

It was then almost time to wave goodbye to Jenny and her family, who were heading back to Gifu but not before we headed to an arcade in hunt of a purikura machine.

There were rows and rows of purikura photo booths and we chose one which made our eyes really big like anime characters.