40 Days of Summer (in Japan) - Part Nijuuni

Lunch today was fried rice and gyoza. I ordered the big portion and didn't realise it would actually be that big, so I took too much time eating it and was late for class.

First world problems.

Linus wanted to check out a comics merchandise shop after class, so I followed him to Harajuku and wandered around the back streets outside the famous road. There's a lot more interesting things in these back alleys than the touts in Takeshita Street.

For a second I thought it was a real person doing statue-performance art.

These streets are all filled with quaint little hipster shops that sell a variety of knick-knacks and tchotchkes and other stuff like that.

Like the kitty stool!

This shop had no magic in it at all. Not even the Muggle kind.

FREAK WHO WOULD WANT TO BUY THIS AND HAVE IT STARE AT THEM WHILE THEY SLEEP

There was this shop selling shirts, and they had a conveyor belt to display twice the number of shirts in a single shop window:

Though this means you can only look at one design for like, twenty seconds, max.

We found the store and Linus went crazy. There were shelves of figurines, mostly from Marvel and DC and Star Wars and many other Western franchises. I wasn't too hyped about figurines; I'm more of an art collector. But it was cool to look around and check out the stuff.

Again: FREAK WHO WOULD WANT TO BUY THIS AND HAVE IT STARE AT THEM WHILE THEY SLEEP

Dark Knight pinball machine! There was an Iron Man one too.

 It seems that any urban area in the world has graffiti scrawled upon their walls, and the only antidote is to paint nice things on the sides of your shop:

This house looks too fantastical amongst the grey buildings of Tokyo.

While wandering the streets, we also found another antique collector's toy store, which was lined floor to ceiling with retro stuff from about ten years ago. I mean, this stuff is all my childhood; it's weird to see it in an antique shop.

How many do YOU recognise?

Trippy art mural, which looks kind of freaky actually.

On my way home, I passed by these three guys who were really doing statue-performance. There were these little kids who came up and shook the hand of the guy on the extreme left; he allowed them to move it but immediately snapped back into position when they let go. I'm not sure if they were doing it for some promotional event or they were doing it "for art", but it was pretty cool to see it in my suburban neighbourhood nonetheless.

I'M FABULOUS

I am very happy with my purchase today, which is a most adorable thing I have ever purchased in my entire life:

Cubist Nemo!