Sunday, what a day to go out for a walk and wonder all that is big in Japan. Together with my friend, we randomly selected a destination to walk to, and it happened to bring us to Meiji Jingu temple. What a great experience it was. The giant park located near Shibuya is dedicated for shrine temples and large forest with giant trees, untouched by humans. Again, my words can not describe how huge these buildings and trees were, when in person. You just need to take my word for it and believe that the pictures you see do not give justice to how gigantic they actually are.
To enter the park, one must walk through a giant Torii gate to reach the spiritual world, and also exit it when leaving the park. I do not believe in supernatural or anything like that, but when you take a walk through this beautiful and gigantic green leaf forest, you can not help but wonder how beautiful the world truly can be. The tree trunks were so thick that they must be over hundreds of years old, maybe even thousand and over. Some were so big that it simply did not fit in to my camera, so all you could see was green leafs, which would not have been very attractive picture to take.
This tree stood next to a temple, and when standing near it, you felt like an ant, small and insignificant compared to this giant tree which must have seen a lot in its life. I do not want to over use this one word, so I will let you know it one last time: Everything in this park was massive, from temple to trees and torii gates.
Together with my friend, we got to witness an ancient traditional Japanese wedding ceremony held in this temple we visited. We just happened to be there in a good time, so I would say we were very fortunate to see it in person. This beautiful lady in white Japanese wedding dress were escorted to the temple, where she would undergo a ritual, before the husband would arrive for them to marry one another. I have read that western style weddings are becoming more popular in Japan, but there is still people who wish to do the ancient Japanese wedding. I instantly fell in love with the wedding dress, for it looked majestic, again, more beautiful in person.
These giant torii gates stood at the entrance of the park, as well as inside it, temple entrances. Torii gates are believed to be portals to the spirit world, where everything is holy. Because of this, there are many who bow down to these gates and go soak their hands and drink water from these tiny water spots, which name I have forgotten.
You take the ladle and fill it with water, then pour it to your hands and drink from it to cleanse your soul.
Only then are you considered worthy to enter the temple area.
Together with my friend, we enjoyed this beautiful park which led us to Shibuya. This city has the world's busiest crossing, and we witnessed its massive crowd of people crossing the road every 5 minutes. Hundreds, if not even thousands of people gathered every 5 minute to cross this one road. It's insane of many people cross this road a day. It sounds caothic, but it's not as bad at it seems. I have began to like these massive crowds and I feel pretty much home in them, now that I have got used to walking in Japan.
When trying to take a picture of the Shibuya crossing, you simply need to be in an elevated place to be able to snap a picture of the massive crowd. Without it, you will just take a picture of a crowd which hides the rest of the people behind it. In the picture below, you might think "that's a lot of peole," but if you were there, your jaw would drop to the sight of how humongous the crowd really was.
I read that over 500,000 people cross this street each day, and when you see how many people cross it at once per 5 minute, that number is very easy to believe, but true estimate is very hard to say.
There was a lot to see in Shibuya, and we even ended up going to Roppongi during day, just to see what it had to offer. But before all that, we went to a random Ramen restaurant, and took Karai Tonkatsu Raamen (辛いとんかつらあめん) - Yes, it is actually Raamen, not Ramen, *shocking*. The kanji (辛い) means spicy, and hot damn was it spicy indeed. With 50yen only, you could add extra spicy paste on it, which would had literally destroyed my liver, because the food itself was already almost too spice to eat. The meat was excellent, and the egg was amazing. The beer was completely different taste than what I am used to in Finland, the foam is actually tasty to drink, which for me at least is unheard of.
This cost me (around) 1200yen due to extra noodles (150yen) and glass of beer (350yen) plus the actual Raamen (850yen). It's 10€ so and so. The bowl of Raamen is actually much bigger than what it seems in the picture, and it left me full for the rest of the day, even when I was walking the whole day.
We saw the Meiji Jingu Temple and the legendary Shibuya crossing, plus we even visited Roppongi during day (Very different from the night time). Tomorrow my work at the office will continue, and I am looking forward to it like always, because I like to work, but most of all, I get to speak Japanese with my co-workers, which is always a nice way to improve my Japanese language skill. Kato-san has promised to take us to Akihabra Maid cafe and to a Video game school on next Friday, that will be very interesting indeed. I promised myself though, that I would not visit those infamous Maid cafes, for they are just too weird for my taste, but if Kato-san is there to show it for us, then perhaps I may endure it.