Omotesando-doori (Rockers) . Meiji-Jingu Shrine (Wedding, French girl) . Akihabara (Arcade, policeman, dinner)

The alarm clock sounds at 11AM. We get up at noon. After showering, we head to the nearest convenience store, or konbini as it is called in Japan, to get breakfast snacks and drinks. There are two in close proximity to our hotel: 7-11, and [Lawson]. We seem to prefer the latter; it's cleaner, has more variety, and occasionally has cute girls behind the register. They blabber their rehearsed phrases, saying the price, the amount you pay, your change, thanking customers for their business, inviting them to come back, etc... and top it all off with multiple little bows. Even if the person making the purchase is obviously not even paying any attention to them, obviously a foreigner, or obviously deaf, they would go through the same verbal routine. Call me funny, but that's one thing that makes Japan unique and cool. The comforting babble of extraneous courtesies, recorded jingles at subway and train stops, useless policemen who direct pedestrian traffic to where they were planning on going anyway... that is life in the Eastern Capitol.

We take the subway to Omotesando-doori, a fun strip in Harajuku. It's a bit of a walk from the station exit towards our destination, the Meiji-Jingu Shrine. But the walk runs through a beautiful section of high-end shops, artists' studios, and outdoor cafes. Sections of the street are lined with large elm trees, in contrast to the rest of the city. We reach a busy intersection; at one corner is a store called [Condomania]. The first time I saw that store in 1995, I giggled amongst my friends as if sharing an embarrassingly naughty secret. Nowadays I routinely ask people, "Do you have sex with men, women, or both?" I guess I've come a long way... but I'm always ready to go back.

A little while further, we reach a bend in the road, right in front of Harajuku JR station. There is a mass of young people in this area. We survey it from the top of an elevated pedestrian bridge. On Sundays, the youth of Tokyo congregate on a single closed-off street running down one direction from the bridge we are standing on. We woke up too late today; the street has been reopened to traffic and the crowds were dwindling... dwindling for Tokyo, that is. It's all relative. The kids (generally high school age) that gather here perform loud music, dress in outlandish costumes, and pose for tourists in a scheduled, orderly display. To be a part of the youth nonconformists and properly rebel against the system, one must make themselves up in a fashion similar to a punk-rock halloween death rocker. There are other favored costumes, such as a nauseatingly ultra-cute schoolgirl or fairy, but I haven't seen too many others... maybe because it wouldn't fit in with the more accepted nonconformist attire.

The entrace to the Meiji-Jingu Shrine, the largest shrine in Tokyo, is near the station as well. It is within a wooded area and an enormous wooden torii (or Shinto gate) marks the entrance. These gates are the largest of its kind in the world. We all pose for a picture after grabbing a random Tokyoite and asking him to snap a shot for us. Afterwards, we walk down the gravelled path. Forks in the road lead to a garden, a rest area, and the shrine proper. We pause at the rest area to get drinks. Quoc and I buy a cold bottle of tea; Ants has a Coke. After a brief stop we head up to the shrine, which encloses a tranquil, nearly featureless courtyard. There are a couple of buildings within that sell omikuji and other religious articles. I walk over to a wooden structure, from which is hanging hundreds of small wooden placards. On each of them are written small prayers for good fortune in school, love, health, etc. Some of them are written in foreign languages, marks left behind by other tourists. In the inner part of the shrine are more boxes with wooden slats over them; I toss some 10¥ coins in them and pray again, a generic prayer for happiness.

While we are looking around, a procession enters from the side of the shrine. It is led by monks and other religious-appearing men. In the middle of the entourage is a couple, a man dressed in a black robe and a woman in white with a geisha-like headdress. They are a couple about to be married. Unlike in the US, the couple looks solemn and do not smile, exercising a certain restrained elegance. A man behind them holds a red umbrella over them. They pause in the middle of the courtyard and something like rites are chanted by the main religious figure. Every tourist in the area flocks to the procession to take pictures, including ourselves. For a moment, I am not certain if they are for real or if they are a display by the shrine for tourists; I quickly decide that the latter idea is ridiculous. I guess I'm a skeptic at heart. There are plenty of Japanese-style weddings in Japan... in addition, I heard that omiai (arranged marriages) still constitute about 10% of all nuptuals.

The sky looks threatening and a few drops of rain fall, but then stop. We walk out the side of the shrine grounds onto a dirt path which leads towards other areas, such as the garden. While we are looking at a map of the area, Ants strikes up a conversation with a young lady who turns out to be from France. Her English is excellent, without a trace of a French accent; it turns out that she did high school in England. Apparently, she has only been in Tokyo for a short time and is working here as a bar hostess. She has been all over the world, going to different countries according to her whims, and experiencing different lifestyles. In each country, she starts fresh and finds a random job to support herself. She hasn't even been to college (or "Uni" as the Europeans say) yet. Every once in a while, she calls her mother in France to tell her that she's doing alright. She finds out that it is the first time Ants and Quoc have been to Japan, and that we're only staying in Tokyo. She advises us, "Tokyo is crazy. You have to get out of this city to see what the REAL Japan is like." But I love Tokyo, I think to myself. If we had more than a week in Japan, I'd definitely have scheduled time outside of the city (I was in charge of scheduling this portion of the trip to Asia).

In a bold and uncharacteristic gesture, Ants asks her take a picture with him; she acquiesces and I snap it on his 35mm Pentax point-and-shoot. He says that he works "in the entertainment industry", playing up that card, and gives her his contact information in the US. He offers to show her around L.A. should she ever happen to be there. This isn't too farfetched, as she was planning on visiting San Francisco later on in the Summer. She must see San Francisco because her mother has always spoken so highly of it.

We were a little astounded by her self-inititive. Compared to her, I've led a very dull life, a life mired in formality and academics. I've always envied those who chose their own way through life rather than take set paths like I did. It certainly leads to more adventure and I suppose if you have a baseline good level of intelligence, you'd probably wind up doing quite well for yourself regardless of the risks. The education you would get would be one more socially- and culturally-oriented, which probably counts as much as detailed technical training. I suppose you'd be sacrificing money and security for experience, which is a worthwhile trade when I really think about it. One such decision point occurred during my 3rd year in medical school. I had applied for an English teacher position in Japan through the JET program. I got the position, but turned it down... I don't know what went through my mind, but I was worried about what life would be like in Japan, I was anxious to finish medical school, etc. Had I gone to Japan, I know I would not have any regrets.

We walk towards the shrine garden, but it turns out to be closed at this time in the afternoon. We leave the area via Harajuku Station and take the JR train to Akihabara, a district in Tokyo known for its density of electronics shops and high-tech gadgetry. When we step out of the station, we were met with yet another dazzling display of neon-lit stores. They are all multi-story electronics shops, which cause Quoc and I to salivate. There are cameras, cell phones, digital video recorders, and walkmen pouring out of the storefronts. We walk into the first store across from the station, and ascend its floors to browse through their wares. Many of the models we saw in the stores were not yet released in the US. In general, the consumer electronics were released earlier in Japan, while computer-related and networking hardware was not nearly as advanced. Seven years earlier, there was an even greater time-gap in Japanese consumer electronics released in America. We leave the shop and encounter many, many more of a similar kind as we walk along the major street.

By this time, having seen all the Japanese playing with their email-enabled, large colored LCD screen cell-phones, we are dying to have one. They are mostly flip models which resemble Star Trek tricorders. The latest models are even equipped with a digital camera to take low-resolution pictures and email them to family and friends. What a great idea... it makes my Nokia with its small black-and-white LCD screen look utterly primitive. In another 5 years, however, all of this stuff will be out of date... tech is moving fast. Are you familiar with Moore's Law? Gordon Moore, president of Intel Corp., was a Caltech PhD graduate.

We walk around and drool some more at the various wares. Harry Potter has just been released on DVD, and it is everywhere. There are people announcing it at the storefronts, and they pronounce it, "Heyarii Pot-taah". There are several stores tucked away in alleyways which sell basic analog hardware parts, like resistors and capacitors. There are tiny spycams for sale as well; some were the size of a quarter. I couldn't figure out a use for them other than shooting your own amateur dirty locker room videos or spying on your significant other. We then walk into a 4-story video arcade and browse the latest games; however with the advent of home console systems (PS2, XBox, and GameCube) there is little to draw our attention. There was one interesting game called "Taiko no Tatsujin" where you were supposed to beat on these large Japanese taiko drums with some wooden sticks, to the beat of several different traditional Japanese rhythms. I watched a mother and her son play the game with mild amusement.

Outside, the rain is starting up again. We head back towards the station, and look for a subway entrance. Unfortunately, the station was JR only... no subway. I ask a worker at the 7-11 across the street where the nearest subway station was... you would have figured that the guy would know the city subway and train stations cold, but he was clueless. C'mon, don't you live here?! We find a cop standing still in front of a large building and ask him. I'm not sure what he's doing out there, but I'm glad we found him. He points us in the right direction. On the way, we stop by a noodle shop and get a cheap dinner before we head back to our hotel in Akasaka. No nightlife tonight; it's Sunday and we have an early morning agenda tomorrow. We're still recuperating from the first two nights.