Went to Harajuku today to see the fashion made famous when Gwen Stefani got so obsessed by it. Some of it is pretty amazing, like the girls who wear kind of full bo-peep outfits with bonnets and frilly dresses, the works. They like their frilly dresses. The hairstyles are cool too. But it wasnt quite as 'out-there' as Id expected. A lot of the outfits were basically just Goth and the main street for teenage fashion Takes***a could just as easily have been Camden Market. I wasnt too shocked by it. I guess London has a lot of wierd fashions as well. The stockings and heels thing is cool tho. If I didnt think it would cause some kind of motorway pile up Id adopt it myself. The Japanese girls can all wear it and it looks cool rather than slutty. Go them! :) I still wonder if the more far out ones wear the full outfits every day, at the dinner table, in front of their grandparents?? Or is it strictly a Sunday in Harajuku thing? While Im on the subject I had a look in an underwear store and its very suspect the whole middle aged men attracted to asian girls thing because the underwear is like childs sizes. Tiny, like youd put on a doll. I had to laugh.

Had good udon noodles for lunch. I was the only non-Japanese and had to order with the whole - ill have what shes having system but it worked out ok. Apart from the egg on top, but live and learn.. The Japanese teenagers were looking at me with only mild interest. I mustve been slurping my noodles in an authentic enough fashion. Then on Meiji I joined a queue (!) in the street for crepes, figured they must be good. Almost everyone around me had one and you could choose from a gazillion flavours.

I walked along Omotesando and Aoyama which were a world apart from Taks***a and had every designer store you can imagine. Real pricey stuff. It was wierd. One moment quirky cheapo teenage clothes, next minute Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman eat your heart out. In for a penny in for a pound, I walked along to the Prada building which won prizes for the architecture (see my photo). The lady explained to me that the bag I was stroking (it was very soft) was made of deer skin and was also available in baby calf. Horrid. Fashion people are horrid. Dont get me wrong ill eat it, but I dont want its skin dangling off my shoulder.

Next I walked down to the Roppongi Hills development cos its famous for being rather snazzy and I do like new developments. The Mori tower is cool, 54 stories, very nice to look at but the weather wasnt good enough to go up to the viewing deck. I had a bit of a half hearted look at the stores (once youve seen one designer mall, youve seen em all) and decided to call it a day. The development apparantely saved the area which was fast becoming pretty scummy, and people take to it because the different architectural styles of the complex makes you feel that its been there for ages. Its popular with ex-pats, I saw about 4 white people which was more than Id seen all day.

And so ends my last day in Tokyo, I am headed for the five lakes area at the foot of Mt Fuji tomorrow. Hopefully you can see from the blogs how much I enjoyed Tokyo, what a great place it is. And Ive been amazed at how easy it is, despite the language barrier - so much of the tourist info is in english, the subway isnt too hard to get your head round, the people are helpful and friendly. Everyone should come and visit cos theres a lot of fun to be had here :)