It rained today.Went to Harajuku and walked around. This is sort of the "Harvard Square" of Tokyo. Lots of kids, lots of stores. Interestingly, lots of crepe stands. And the crepes are good!
Found 'Hatch', which is an eyeglasses store and each bought 2 pair of glasses for cheap! They include an eye exam, frames, lenses, and some accoutrements into the price. I think that each of my pairs was 12500¥, which is approx $125 (~$120). And, for most prescriptions, they'll have them ready in about 20 minutes. Suck it Lenscrafters. Lots of great styles. This was "Hatch 8" and there are a number of them around the city. The guy that helped us (Ba Ba) had a great eye for frames (he picked mine out) and was hilarious!
Nearby is the Meiji Shrine, with lots of people dressed up formally. Erica thinks it's the 3-5-7 festival. The photo above is of the largest Toyo gate in the world. It's huge! The shrine is beautiful. We walked around quite a lot that day.
Some thoughts on communicating in Japan from Erica: You can and should learn some Japanese. You don't need to learn a ton, but getting the basics down can be really helpful. Pimsleur is good, especially if you are an auditory learner. It's surprising that Japanese people generally don't speak that much English, due to the fact that English is everywhere. It's in subway announcements, written on signs and products, etc. Of course, those aspects are not really conversational; perhaps that it.
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