Woke up bright and cheery to make our way to Harajuku, just 2 stations away from Shinjuku. Both metro and JR are able to reach there. Once out of the station, we were greeted by Takeshita street. Already crowded on a Sun morning. Decided to grab breakfast at Hoshino Coffee where Tin had Chocolat cake, J had seafood sandwich and myself had some pancake/sponge cake thingy and good old tea.
Breakfast at Hoshino coffee
This weird looking pancake/sponge cake thingy with ice cream is really good!
Then we proceed to Meiji Shrine. There's a very nice Long walk into the shrine surrounded with greenery, macam a forest. Nice leisurely stroll for adults while children are seen running around. The nice cool weather really up the experience. we also see Japanese, esp children, dressing in traditional costumes, think they are attending wedding lunch at the shrine. Very kawaii. We were lucky to run into a wedding ceremony at the shrine, very majestical and glam.
Tip: suggest to browse website to see tips/ rules on visiting the shrine, such as how to cleanse oneself at the entrance using the wooden ladle, how to do proper praying in Jap way and also note that photography is not allowed in the shrine (outside the praying area ok)
At the entrance of Meiji shrine
Beautiful wine barrels
Some flower exhibition outside the shrine
Tin intrigued by a traditional toy at the shrine souvenir shop.
My loot from the souvenir shop
After that we walked through the busy Takeshita street to Kiddyland at Harajuku. It was a Long walk but along the way, there's a Halloween parade on the road! Btw Japanese are very onz in dressing up for Halloween, but theirs are more of the cutesy cosplay version. Kiddyland is a 6 storey toy shop but the tomica/train selection is quite limited. They have more of the Disney/soft toy/stationery stuff.
We proceed to Luke Lobster for lunch but the queue for its lobster roll was freaking Long so we gave up. In fact, every restaurant was crowded, maybe cos it's a Sunday and there's a Halloween parade earlier. We finally found a relatively short queue for a ramen store at a quiet corner. We had to order via a vending machine which was challenging. I unknowingly ordered cold udon Mee that comes with hot soup. Erm, not to my liking.
Spot the vending machine on the left to order our ramen for lunch
We walked back to Takeshita street to do some shopping and grab some snacks but it's awfully crowded on a sun afternoon. I so wanna try the beautiful big candy floss in a 2nd level shop at the middle of the street but queue was too Long, so 没缘分。I only managed to grab some Calbee potato chips and sticks. I thought the Calbee potato chips with soft serve was really good. The potato sticks were so-so.
Tip: might be better idea to go Takeshita street and try Luke Lobster on a weekday. Sunday there was crazily crowded.
Calbee potato sticks and to-die-for potato chips with soft serve
After a tiring afternoon, we went back to hotel to take a break. Our legs were almost going to break.
At night we proceeded to the Magic of Alice theme restaurant. It was SO hard to find the place, which was somewhere near Shinjuku west station. While J was busy figuring out the map, I brought Tin to drugstore to look look see see.
Eye mask(regret buying cos Sg also sell) and DHC lip balms ( recommended by some blogger)
Finally reached the magic of Alice restaurant. Although it was 8pm plus, we still had to wait for 20min as we did not make reservation. Nevertheless we were still excited as it was our first time at theme restaurant. When we got in,we saw that the guests, mostly ladies, were dressed in Alice's costumes. Damn pretty la. The waitresses were also wearing Alice costumes and they were really pretty. Definitely a feast for eyes for J. We realised later one can rent costumes from the restaurant for a fee.btw the meal was quite costly.
Tip: Do make reservations for theme or famous restaurants.
Tin with bear ears
My Bunny ears
Nice fairy land design inside the restaurant
Our mock tails and complimentary bread. The bread was really good!
Our appetiser, which is also bread, haha
The pizza was damn good
The prawn Spaghetti was erm, not to our liking.
Cat-looking ice cream dessert
Free teabags that came with the bill
That's all for the day!
