Harajuku Pics #2

The 2nd part of the pictures from Harajuku and the adjacent Meiji Shrine.

( click here for Harajuku pt 1)

Just down the street is the KDDI design studio. Sort of equivalent to the Sony or Nissan showroom I suppose, its a place for KDDI (and its cell phone arm, Au) to show off their latest stuff. The displays weren't all that spectacular, considering I have their digital TV at my house already and every cell phone store has the phones on display already. But this was the place where the Star Wars Au promo event was held over the summer, so it was cool to visit anyway. :-P

While in Harajuku, we walked over to the nearby Meiji Jingu shrine. Since it was Sunday, it was full of tourists and Japanese families. Unfortunately there were no nice fall colors on the grounds, but we walked around a bit just to check it out.

There were some Japanese families there in Kimono too. Some were bringing their kids to do some traditional blessing ceremonies or something, and as I later found out, some like this nice young woman were there for weddings.

A bunch of security guards starting clearing a path through the middle of the courtyard for this procession. Which was for a wedding. Since this is one of the biggest, most famous temples in all of Tokyo, I'm guessing the kind of people who have their weddings here are either loaded or connected to the aristocracy or government or something.

Here's a better view of the bride, groom, priests, etc. Very fancy.

The procession went across the courtyard and then into a side chamber. Then like 5 minutes later they came back...

Wait a minute, what happened to the groom's head?!? and the guests are all different too. We quickly realized that this was a different wedding group. I guess like the Japanese weddings I saw in October, they do these back to back to back. :-P

After the shrine, we walked back towards the bridge. Yet another group of diverse fashioned people had shown up, this one a little more diverse:

At first we weren't sure if this leather gimp was a guy or a girl at first.

Further inspection shows it is a girl. A strange one, but a girl none the less. She, like most of them was very amicable to be photoed. As this photo was being taken there were 3 or 4 guys with professional level cameras (digital SLRs with huge lenses) taking dozens of pictures of her from only 2 feet away.

Note the hat this girl is wearing. There is an interest in type of Naz!-inspired cosplay. Even to the point where they sell videos of it at cosplay maniac stores (in this case just cheesecake)

I should note that while most were very friendly and open, not all the people there were willing to being photoed. Nearby to the above, there were more leather goth types, one of whom had her face covered with a handkerchief. I noticed her and her friends because they were wearing some freaky white contact lenses (really freaky).

I was about to ask if I could take their picture when a fancy camera guy took a shot of them. The girl w/ the handkerchief went OFF on him (something you rarely see in Japan). I decided not to ask. :-P

Inspired by the film Doctor Zhivago? Looks like a Japanese version of Julie Christie if ever there was one.

This was actually down the street from the 'regular' weird kids. The question is, is this an authorized Hello Kitty costume or is this just an over enthusiastic Kigurumi practicioner who was just walking around on their own.

Speaking of which... this enthusiastic Harajuku stands head and shoulders above the rest... and can probably beat them all at arm wrestling too.

Yes, even the small kids are into it. Or rather... like beauty pagent kids in the US, their parents are into it. Right before we saw these two, I said to KXD "I wonder what happens when these guys grow up.... what are the Harajuku girls of 5 or 10 years ago doing now?... little did I know that my question would answer itself - at least some of them have grown up and are now subjecting their kids to it. :-P

Vinyl-y! A photographer was taking pictures of this girl so she walked out into the street during the red light to pose.

Laces-y. I wonder how long it takes to get this outfit on.

note on Harajuku: i should mention that most or all of these people don't live here. they come out from the suburbs or nearby cities to meet up here. A few of the kids I asked said they were from Saitama. But apparently they come down most weekends and meet up. And they said that the tv camera and photographer frenzy is normal too.

If you can believe it, KXD and I forgot to take a picture together (he refused to take any pictures with the freaky kids). I did get this shot while we were enjoying some dinner at TGI McScratchy's.