Shibuya...Tokyo's Times Square

Mike has wanted to visit Shibuya ever since he heard of it, not because of any of the exciting things you can do there, but because of how much fun he had pronouncing its name, She-BOO-YA, always said with much enthusiasm, of course. So when our friend Rich invited us to go with him one Saturday, we were all over it.

First thing on the agenda was the obligatory train ride. You can't get anywhere in Japan without using the train system. We started to get hungry during the ride, so Mike passed around my homemade chocolate chip cookies I had made the night before. Mike always makes fun of me for always packing food when I travel, but it really worked out this time, didn't it?


Outside of the train station is a famous statue of a dog who, legend has it, would dutifully wait for it's master everyday at that same spot. It's a popular meeting place and we had to finaggle our way beside it to get our picture taken.


Here's a picture of the girls, La-La on the left and Lynn on the right. La-La is Rich's friend who's visiting from China, and Lynn is Colin's wife. Both Rich and Colin work with Mike.















And here are the guys, ordering lunch from a kebab place. I was a little intrepidated by the look of the big slab of meat at the window, but I was so hungry because I didn't eat any of the cookies on the train, so I ate it anyway. It was actually really good. It turns out they slice the meat and put it in a sort of pita pocket with lettuce and tomatoes and some sauce. On a side note...there was another picture I was going to put in place of this one that showed the guys, but I was afraid some people might be scandalized by it, so if you're interested, let us know and we'll email it to you. Nothing kinky or anything, but I was really surprised they had something like it in Japan where the culture is very conservative.

Here are a few interesting things we saw while we wandered around...

A Lamborghini owned by an old Japanese guy with a young, hot, blonde girlfriend.


A guy advertising for free hugs. None of us had the courage to go up and actually hug him, but later on, we did see a guy in a Winnie the Pooh costume take him up on his offer. I kid you not! Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera ready to give you proof...


The cutest dogs...the Japanese really love dogs here. I saw these three, all in dresses, and being pushed around in a stroller and I just had to have a picture!

Finally we ended the night at an Irish Pub. At one point, the girls went out in search of a nearby ice cream shop, while the guys finished their drinks. We couldn't find one so we ended up sitting outside and just talking. A Japanese guy came up to us and started speaking Japanese, thinking we were locals. I've only got 3 Japanese classes under my belt, and La-La speaks Chinese, but luckily Lynn is pretty good at the language. When she explained to the guy that we didn't speak any Japanese, he says to us that he can speak English. So this is what he says after what seemed like an eternity of trying to figure out what to say, "Please, drink with me." After explaining we were married and our husbands were just inside, he immediately disappeared. At which point, we girls figured it was time to head in and get the guys.

We never did find the ice cream place, but instead ended our night by eating a crepe, which is a very popular treat here. It was a great time and I can't wait to do it again.