From Shinjuku we go to Shibuya a well known area of retail stores with a famous crossing where you can see all the new clothing trends in Japan, supposedly. the subway drops us right in the center of it all and it certainly is very, very busy almost overwhelmingly so. We go first to the crossing which is actually less busy than the surrounding streets at the moment but still quite busy.
We do some people watching as we walk around the crossing and try to understand why so many people are dressed in similar clothing. And why are some streets closed?
Soon we understand that all of this may be driven from the fact that there is a festival procession going on which seems really popular. Later we understand that we actually, by sheer luck, were able to see the famous Mikoshi parade which explains all the people, some carrying the portable shrines and some watching them.
There are actually 14 portable shrines paraded for good luck and all of them meet on Sunday near the Shibuya crossing, exactly when we are here. The whole festival is a deeply routed Shinto tradition that lasts three days and prays for bountiful harvest, prosperity and well being of the local communities. We had no idea about this on site of course, the internet allowed us to understand what we witnessed when we researched later.
We then enter in a few stores, mostly expensive, and do a little peoplewatching and sightseeing and then decide to move on to our last destination of the day Asakusa.
However on the way we take one more look at the restaurants, here there are restaurants that are focused on Japanese specialties like whale meat and puffer fish. Not that we want to try them but we were curious where they are sold, now we know.
