Crowded.

And hot. Very, very, very hot.

That, my friends, was Harajuku.
Now, I know what all the folks in Australia back home are thinking; "It's Japan, Lucie. Japan. How bad can it get?".

Don't argue with me, you Australian folk, you, what with your current Winter Wonderland of chilly goodness back at home. It's a little more than just 'toasty' here. In early Summer, most of Japan's prefectures are actually blessed by the Horrible Fairy with a rainy season called 'Tsuyu', which usually brings relentless rain for a couple of weeks and very bipolar weather. Right now, we're coming out of Tsuyu, but it's extremely humid here, to the point that sometimes you wish you could just stay inside, gladwrap ice to your body, hide under the floorboards and become a House Goblin for the rest of the Summer. But seeing how House Goblins don't get out very much (hey, have you ever seen one in Harajuku?), I decided to accompany my other Utsunomiya-dwelling exchange student buddy, Jessica, to set off for the land of Neverending Sales and Lacey Dresses.

I can't tell you how therapeutic the day was, really. Whilst being an exchange student in Japan does wonders for your Japanese (it's sink or swim, really - to communicate, you've got to really get into it and overcome that fear of making mistakes), it's often at the cost of your English, so when you're able to have an in-depth conversation with someone in your native tongue, it's a good feeling, like sitting down after a long run and stretching out your legs again. It's also done wonders for my self-confidence, because although I'm still not a person of the spoken word, I find that mixing with strangers and making connections with new people is much more fun than it used to be. In fact, I look forward to it now. Woo!

Chris being ninja with his camera.

After greeting Melbournite AIIU student, Chloe, and The American (who, from this point on, I'll refer to as 'Chris', although just 'The American' does have sort of a masochist Superhero ring to it, doesn't it?) and miraculously finding a lost and phoneless Michael wandering amongst five billion other people all squashing together in the same side-street, we were off to do the usual Harajukuey shenanigans, like shopping for clothes, Lolita gear, doubletaking a few times passing several fairy hairy trappy Man-Lolitas and having our money and change stolen by Family Restaurant after some relatively alright ice-creams.

500 calories of choco-banana goodness.

Probably been a million snaps of this on the internet, but I'll join the other hundreds of foreigners in finding "Ohoho those silly Japanese'-like amusement at this 'No Smorking sign".

You better not tout anyone either.

I did have a five second exciting reunion with a Swedish girl and Adelaide guy from Australia that I'd met from a previous International Relations Excursion Shindig, but that chance meeting was foiled by fate as we, well, lost eachother in the crowd again after a bout of Purikura and only five minutes of Harajuku exploration. Easy come, easy go! I'm sure we'll meet again, somewhere, in some place random.

.
We shall meet agaaaain.

Ah, part of me did want to pick up some cheap Mary-Janes to go with my Victorian Maiden attire from Atelier Pierrot (ha, more on that little embarrassing secret later), but I was lured back to reality by some awesome PVC figures from Harajuku's five level character goods store, KIDDYLAND.

The famous Humping Dog USB. One of my more tasteful purchases.
The boxes (Little Trickers and Ye Old English Dunny - Dunny reffering to a bunny-like character, not a toilet, which I write for the benefit of you Aussies out there reading this) contain figures, but you don't know which one you're going to get, so it's a bit of a lucky-dip system. There was only one figure of the fifteen possible designs that I didn't particularly want, a hot pink rabbit with big anime eyes and a tourist sun-cap, and Chris was like, "What if you get that one?" to which I thought in reply, "The Gods wouldn't be that cruel."

I hate the Gods.
This has only strengthened my resolve to go back and snag myself one of those other awesome designs! That is, if I don't get bloomin' Tourist Bunny again. But I guess it's kind of trendy in a campy way (yep... that's what I have to tell myself to sleep at night...counting the ten dollar notes as they jump out of my wallet and over Japan's economic fence).

Dinner was spent eating creamy unagi (eel) and some shellfish limpets guys in soup whilst being disturbed by 'The Lovely Bones' with my host father. Fun times.