We were off to a late start today due to sleeping in. The walking all day is starting to slow us down! We wanted to go to Harajuku today so we decided to try out Mos Burger for lunch since it’s conveniently located close to Shinjuku Station (saying something is close to Shinjuku Station is a pretty loose phrase… since the station covers a couple of blocks of cityspace… but I digress). Food review time! Alex: The Teriyaki one was my favourite. The cheese was the best I’ve ever had in a burger, the beef was not quite as good as The Burger’s Priest, which was surprising for “Wagyu”, the toppings and sauce were full of flavour.

My favourite one was the classic Mos Burger because that huge helping of tomato sauce on it  is amaaazing. If you like ketchup/tomato sauce that is. it definitely doesn’t taste like any kind of burger we have in Toronto.. Would probably eat it like once every 2 months.

After that, we headed to Laduree, a Paris-originated patisserie known for their macarons. Located right next to the entrance to the subway! Super convenient. I was excited about this because this is probably the closest I’d get to real Paris macarons outside of France. Turns out they also served ice cream, so we tried that too. They had only two flavours to choose from – chocolate and yogurt (rose was sold out… such a shame! I would have got that…) and you could choose toppings such as candied rose, lychee, chocolate sauce, macaron pieces, and other little candies and compotes. The ice cream was alright, but the macarons were AMAZING… somehow I’ve never really tasted a ‘creamy’ macaron but these were not just lightly crisp on the outside and light on the inside, but when you got to the filling, there was a very luxurious richness. …..sooooo we ate all of them and went on our way!

Harajuku is thankfully only 1 stop away from Shinjuku so we were there fast. As we exited the station, I noticed that the area around it had lots of trees and I remembered reading somewhere that it’s very close to Meiji Shrine. Turns out, you just have to poke your head around the corner of Harajuku Station and the entrance to the shrine is right there.

Meiji Shrine or Meiji Jingu is a beautiful, peaceful and calming place… in the middle of a ridiculously busy area. I don’t understand. How they keep the grounds so beautiful, how everyone is so respectful, how you can only hear nature even though Harajuku, Shinjuku, and Shibuya are all walking distance away.. I have no idea. The path to the actual shrine area is about a 15-20 min walk through trees and giant wooden gates and over pretty stone bridges. Once we got there, we wrote wishes and prayers for our family and friends on the paper and wooden tablets provided, attached an offering and paid respect to the beautiful shrine. We got the opportunity to see a traditional Japanese wedding taking place as well. The entire experience was very humbling. One thing I could not help but note is how respectful Japanese culture is; to nature, other people, property, everything. Bikes are left leaned against walls with no locks and no one steals them. Shrines are left open and no one steals form them or vandalizes them. We read that these main stations like Ikebukuro and Shinjuku see about 1 million passengers a day, yet the trains are cleaner than in Toronto. Every store we go into, even the tiny, dusty hobby stores run by young people are so polite. I really wish the rest of the world could treat others and things and nature so well.—The whole smoking indoors thing though is off putting and I’m not sure if I could get used to that again. Ugh…

Next, we walked down the main shopping strip of Harajuku area and found a toy store that we had heard about. It had a Rilakkuma store in it, a huge Studio Ghibli section, and a Snoopy Shop. We spent a long time in there. Yes, I swear we’re adults.

We were very hungry suddenly, so we decided to spur-of-the-moment look up what good food was nearby and found some really great reviews for a little gyoza shop which happened to be a 2 minute walk away from us on Google Maps. And let me tell you — what an amazing last minute find!!!! The place was very tiny and very simple and the menu was the same. You could choose between steamed or pan fried gyoza and a couple of sides and drinks. This gyoza was way better than the ones at Namjatown because even the panfried ones were not very oily at all. The dough was super fresh and had a good chew to it and the filling was full flavoured. Super cheap too.. an entire dinner for the two of us came to 1400 yen. As I write this I can tell I’m going to want to go back before we leave Japan.

Next, we decide to try our Google luck once more to find dessert, and we settle on a crepe place nearby… however, while walking there, we see some girls advertising a cupcake shop on the sidewalk and realize they’re holding a sign that says Magnolia Bakery… yes, of NYC/Sex In The City fame. We both stop in our tracks and say to each other “Magnolia Bakery? THE Magnolia Bakery?? Where?!” and the girl turns to us and says in perfect English (which I am not used to hearing anymore from strangers) “Just downstairs!!”… so we beeline it.

On our way back to the hotel, we take the way that Alex has been calling “the spider path”…. Allow me to explain. He saw a huge spider on a web between trees…. the side of a grown man’s hand… and now he’s traumatized. But it’s this surprisingly quiet, beautifully tree-lined, cobble stone path tucked between bars, clubs, restaurants and shops and it leads to a block away from our hotel. It’s also the hidden entrance to Shinjuku’s Golden Gai – tight alleyways of tiny bars that only come alive after 9/10pm at night. We’ve been passing it every night/day on our way to and from the hotel (well, I’ve been begging him to take this way, since it’s so pretty) but we never really took a good look. Well, tonight we decided to take a short walk around and I was blown away. We found tiny bars which was expected but….. when I say tiny, I mean, some of them could only hold 5 people and we passed some that was basically a window with space for 2 stools, with 1 person sitting behind the table. Very very intimate. You could tell we were early for the real crowd, this was around 9:30ish.. but still, as we peered into each bar, many were full, and most of them had foreigners in them which was surprising to me. You could see Japanese salarymen chatting super friendly with foreigners and it was a really nice thing to see! The language barrier as really thrown me off since we got here so maybe that’s why. One of the bars even had a sign in broken English posted on the door that read “If you have problem, you can talk to me. I love english. And also you!”