Shibuya 渋谷区, Japan Trip (Day 5)

31st December 2014, Wednesday

Hachiko Statue

Yippie! Today is the last day of year 2014 and we will be going for countdown in Meji Shrine tonight. I also didn't plan much of the activities for today, so we made our way to Shibuya for shopping and buy new ipads. And so we took the metro from Hanzomon station to Shibuya Station. We reached there around 10 plus like that, and we kept crossing the road to find the loyal dog statue - Hachiko. It was hiding at one of the corner near the JR Shibuya Station entrance. And there were many people waiting to take photo with it and there were also a lot of people just crowding around the area. Opposite the it got a stall selling roasted chestnuts and we went over to buy a packet. Not too bad...After we bought the chestnuts, we started on our walking trail but we stopped outside Starbucks to tap on their wifi to find where is the apple store there. Not able to tap on the wifi, so we continued walking. My friend saw there was a long queue outside a cake shop and she just went to queue. I went to the front of the shop and the shop named 'Pablo'. It was selling cheesecakes and with different flavors too. The cakes look nice and yummy, and so we bought 1 cake with coated sugar on top. After buying, we continued to walk on the streets, there were many buildings around, Forever 21, Outback Steaks until we walked until a sushi restaurant named Sushizanmai in an alley.

Sushi Deluxe Set

Miso Soup

Crab Miso Soup

So we went in to have our lunch as it was almost 2 pm by the time we walked to there. We ordered a sushi deluxe set ($3000 yen) and a bowl of crab soup. The sushi set looks delicious and colorful when it was placed before us. The sushi master had prepared them in front of us and there was a big miso soup with a lot of seaweeds. The sushi were so fresh and sweet, i like it...even those i don't take tasted so good. Red tuna, fat tuna, salmon....we ordered 3 more individual pieces after the set too (Even now i still think of the sushi while looking at the photos...hohohoho). We noticed the tuna was slightly expensive than salmon there. After eating, we thanked the sushi master and paid for our meal. Then we continued to explore the area, went into a very big building selling handicrafts stuffs. It was having a few levels, selling a lot of DIY stuffs inside. Even have wifi signals and toilets...hehehee...Went in to check out the handicrafts stuffs but it seems a bit expensive, so we left. Then we ended up at a building called Loft and i saw Kinokuniya bookstore and so we went in. I asked the staff on an origami book that my brother wanted and my friend went off to look for hers. Luckily there was wifi in kino, so i on my wifi to check out what is the apple store. Google map showed it was just nearby and so we went out to try locate it. So funny, i kept looking at the map until i lifted my head up and saw the apple store was just opposite the road. So happy to find the apple store, if not, my friend kept bugging me to find for her the whole day. Anyway, we went in and checked out the prices for ipad air 2 and iphones. Too bad, apple stopped all sales on unlocked sim-free iphones 2 weeks ago, so we cannot buy iphones back. So we each bought an ipad air 2, with no tax included. My friend wanted to buy Applecare too as it was also cheaper to buy in Japan. But the staff kept telling us the applecare is for Japan use, not international, telling us that we can't buy it there. (It sound weird, right?).

Preparing to brave the nights

We also noticed that there were people camping outside of the store, so we asked the staff why are the people camping outside the store. She told us the people were queuing to buy fukubukuro (aka lucky bags) which were selling on the 2nd of January 2015. And today was just the 31st Dec, plus the weather was also cold. And while i was in the store, i told my friend to bring me to the famous Shibuya Crossing. She said we just now had already crossed it, the crossing just outside the JR and metro stations. Oh man, i was like huh? that was the famous Shibuya crossing?? Hahaha...wasn't expecting it cos it felt like i was just crossing a normal big road, that's all. And so after spending almost 2 hours in the store and finally bought the ipads, we went walking on the streets again. Saw Parco building and went in to check out the building, there's a ghostbusters cafe and pokemon cafe on the 7th level. But the pokemon cafe was not opened for business yet. Then we went 1 level down and saw anime shops. There was one big store called Mugiwara Store, it was the biggest store for One Piece stuffs. I spent some time inside the store, trying to get something for my little sister while my friend went off to some other shops. There were really a lot of stuffs inside, if you are a crazy lover of One Piece, i think you will end up buying a lot of goodies there....hehehee....After spending a long time at that level, we finally hit the streets again on our walking trail. We had to pass by NHK hall, where there was a big group of people standing outside the hall holding Japan flags..seems like doing a protest or something. Then we reached Yoyogi park, we were supposed to walk the park before dark. But we ended up in the park after the sun sets...lol...Anyway we still went in and walked in the park to continue our trail. The moon can be seen clearly up in the sky too. Then we saw opposite the road, there were white tents and it was very happening like that. So we crossed over to take a look, it was the Yoyogi National Stadium and it was holding Ayumi Hamasaki Countdown Concert!! 

Queue of No End Point

Everyone was queuing to buy the tee-shirts, jackets, credit cards sign-ups, towels, etc. I also wanted to buy a tee-shirt for my sister, but when i saw the queue to buy, it was OMG.....we can't even see the ending point of the queue. So we just left, cos we also didn't have so much time to stuck ourselves there to queue. But the tee-shirts and jackets designs were quite nice. So we continued to walk down to Meji Shrine, as it was only about 6 plus when we arrived at the shrine. We decided to go ahead to visit the shrine first but we ended up shopping in the gifts shop for like half an hour there...lol....Bought a design changing cup, the design of the cup changes when hot water is being poured in. After that, we walked up to the shrine and there wasn't much people yet. It was a long road to the shrine, there were empty wine barrels on the sides and there were a very big tv monitor on one part too. We could see ourselves on the big screen...hohoho...Then we went to the main shrine after cleansing ourselves with clean water. There was curtains covering the shrine and there was a big area for people to toss coins in. There were also police officers setting up barrages to prepare for the human traffic later in the night. And as we still have about 2 or 3 hours to go before midnight, we went out to eat dinner.

Meji Shrine

Takoyaki (from Osaka)

Colorful Bananas

BBQ Pork & Beef

There was many food stalls selling outside Meji Shrine, sometimes like our pasar malam stalls along the streets. We went up to a BBQ restaurant called Watamim-chi, there were many people eating inside and the waiting place was very cramped, plus the lift was just there. As we got much time to wait, so we told the manager that we were ok to wait for table. But when we got our tables after like half an hour, we were seated in between 2 groups who were smoking and the bbq ordering was to order 1 stick by 1 stick. I was getting irritated by the smoking and my friend thought it will be hard for us to order that. So we left without eating. We just walked along the food stalls and ordered whatever we want to eat...heheee...Actually the food selling by the food stalls looks nice, the fried chicken pieces were also nice to eat. There was a queue for BBQ pork and beef too, it was chewy and sweet. After eating, we stuck ourselves in Mcdonald's there to hide away from the cold wind. Had hot drinks there and then we just sat there and waited until it was time to go back to the shrine again. Had a happy meal again when it was 11 plus, got hungry while waiting...hohoho....We started to walk back to the shrine at around 11.30 pm, this time, there were more people going to the shrine, a lot of youngsters too. Until a point we had to stop and wait to go in to the shrine. Luckily the wind wasn't blowing so strong, so we stood there and waited for midnight. 

Waiting to go in Shrine

Someone got interviewed

Once the clock strikes midnight, the ritual started and it was broadcasted on the big TV screen. Cannot really see it due to too many heads in front. Then there were police officers standing in front of 1 section of the crowd, holding a board telling people when to move ahead and when to stop. It took us about 30 mins to go in the shrine again and this time, the police officers will tell the people to move quickly so that the next batch of people can come in. We saw some people went into the shrine to hit the drum, we wanted to try that but no one was able to tell us whether we are allowed to go in. There was a lady we asked, she was saying we could go in, we just have to write our details on the paper or something. But when we asked the police officers, they told us we cannot and asked us to leave. Oh well, so we left and went to take the metro back to the hotel. When we came down to the metro, we saw Starbucks selling their lucky bags. So we went up and checked it out. We bought 3 of the bags...hehehee..and went off...Luckily the metro was still operating cos it was almost 2 am but the train was abit slow. There was a group of guys and 1 lady, and 1 of the guys was drunk, he can't even stand properly in the train. His hand still hit on my head when he entered the train and after that, he was making quite a nuisance on the train. Finally, we alighted and went back to hotel to sleep...tomorrow have to catch train to Kyoto....

Hotel Stayed:
APA Hotel - Hanzomon Hirakawacho