東京 | Tokyo (2) - Meiji Shrine, DOGS! & Merch

However unsavoury this might look, yakisoba sandwich was a true winner imo.

Another "surprise grab" breakfast from 7-11, and then we set off for some cultural and historical enlightenment. Off to Harajuku to visit the Meiji-Jingumae Shrine!

Sake barrels annually donated to the shrine as an offering.

Wash your hands in the icy January water before going in!

The weather was, again, wonderful, and we headed along the long path to the shrine with clear blue skies and bright, lukewarm winter sun overhead. What with it still being the first couple of weeks of 2015, there were a lot of visitors dropping by to make their wishes and prayers for the new year.

It was certainly very busy! I think actually there was a special event going on, as there were quite a large number of girls wearing kimono and furisode posing for photos. (EDIT: I've found out that by some stroke of luck we happened to visit on Coming of Age Day, which is a bit like a nationwide birthday for all of the people that turned 20 that year, the legal age in Japan)

Creepy sneak photo of a girl walking past in her furisode.

Chuseok | Osaka Day 2

We left Mako-chan at home to guard the apartment. He seemed pretty happy to do so.

We woke up and had a good lie-in (about 10am, oh how times have changed) before going out. We decided that we wanted this holiday to be a little bit more spontaneous and less hectic than the previous one, so we had a list of places we wanted to visit and a rough schedule but nothing set in stone.

A cute little drawing of a cicada near our building. I can only assume the writing says "HI, I'LL MAKE MAEMMAEMMAEM NOISES UNTIL YOUR EARS BLEED AND YOU GO INSANE"

I thought this looked too perfectly anime to NOT take a photo of.

We decided to go to the Osaka Kaiyukan, one of the world's largest public aquariums. I hadn't been to one in ages, so I was really excited.

So was Haru, so we brought him along for the ride.

 The ride from Shin-Osaka to the bay area was easy enough, and the huge aquarium was also pretty easy to find. With an incredibly tall ferris wheel right next door, the area as a whole is hard to miss.

KAIYUKAN

Before going in we decided to have some breakfast (I guess technically brunch by this point) so we went into the little shopping complex nearby and headed for the food court.