Well, this morning we had planned to get up early and go to the fish market but we must've been more tired than we thought because we both slept through the 6am alarm. Instead we were up at 8am and after breakfast took the train to Harajuku.
Shannon had an appointment booked to get a tattoo done at 12pm so we strolled around the streets of Harajuku for a while until it was time to head to the tattoo parlour. We bought Oreo a really sweet collar that you can alternate between a bow tie and suit tie. It's actually for dogs and has a print of Snoopy all over it, but it was too cute to pass up and we'd been meaning to buy one since we first discovered them.
The tattoo place was called Three Tides and was basically just one smallish room. We were the only customers so they set up Shannon's bed table and then got to work. The tattoo is a maneki cat holding a fish and has a fair bit of colour in it so after they got started I went out for a walk in Harajuku.
Harajuku is kind of like the artist's area of Japan so it's a cool place with I guess you could say an alternative feel. I spent a good part of my hour and a half walk looking for an ATM to get money out (with no success) but ended up stumbling into a shop called Kiddyland where I bought a heavily discounted Hello Kitty planner. Bargain!
When I got back to the tattoo place they had only just finished doing the outlines. Yikes! The lady directed me to a 7-11 so I went for another quick walk to finally get money out.
When I returned the guy had started filling in the colour. The tattooist had heaps of tattoos all over his arms and also lots on his face. He was cool though. Didn't speak much Japanese but nice guy.
I sat there watching Shannon grimace for a while and then ended up napping sitting upright in my chair, like a true Japanese. I woke up at about 3pm and then by about 4pm the tattoo was finished!
It looks so cool! The guy did a really great job and Shannon is very happy with the final result.
After thanking them and paying we took the train to Ginza. Ginza is the richer part of Tokyo and I stayed there last time so I wanted to revisit it. We had dinner at a beer hall and strolled the clean streets for a while. After dessert at a sweets cafe we decided to head back to the hostel as it was getting a bit cold and we didn't really feel like shopping, which is basically all you can do in Ginza at night.
Bit of an early night tonight but hopefully we can get up bright and early tomorrow and actually make it to the fish market. Here's to hoping!