Harajuku – a contrast of spirits

So the honeymoon period at work is over… The initial excitement of interacting with new colleagues and a different office culture is now replaced by drone like actions and an immense sense of TGIF once the weekend approaches. I guess one thing is universal, Japan or not… who wants to work when you can have a fun weekend to look forward to? (Okay… exclude my boss who works till 10 or 11pm everyday.)

This weekend, we are off to Harajuku, an ultra funky town. The youth culture in this town is colourful to the point that our own ah-bengs look like plain shades of grey. Another way to look at their mentality is that they may be in permanent Halloween mode. Most of them won’t look one bit out of place in a fancy dress competition. Just take a look here... u will get the drift. It seems that the in thing now is a souped up version of an English maid’s uniform. The street is also filled with many shops selling such costumes. The Neo and Morpheus costumes are particularly realistic and cost just S$300.

After walking the streets, we rushed to make it into the Meiji Shrine, just before their gate closing at 4pm. This shrine worships the spirit of the late Meiji emperor. History lesson time… emperor Meiji lived from the late 19^th century to just before WWI (that’s why its called the Meiji restoration period).

Paying respects to the late emperor

Emperor Meiji was credited as the first emperor to take over actual control of Japan from the Shogun. Under his reign, Japan prospered from a third world country to first and did the unthinkable by defeating Russia in a war.(the first Asian country to defeat a western power).

The atmosphere in this shrine is quite a somber change from the vibrant spirit of youth witnessed moments ago. To me, the shrine and the surrounding grounds bring meaning to the words serenity and spirituality. At the courtyard are two Shinto priests seemingly keeping watch of the fire in silence and concentration.

Soon after I received a pleasant surprise… I was there to actually witness a tradition Japanese wedding in the shrine.

The wedding procession

I was half expecting the guards to shoo me away… but the wedding procession just walked passed me! Anyone interested can get a short video clip of the procession from me. The whole experience of it all was just Wow… not something just any tourist can witness.

Photo session (Notice that this groom is an Ang Mor?)