adventures abroad

Insulin versus Adventure

b. ‘Journey in an Unknown Culture’

The second I exited the Harajuku train station, my vocabulary reduced itself to three words: “Oh My God.” As far as the eye could see, shops thrust their way into the desperate grasp of ravenous consumers. Not unlike high school students at a grade twelve formal, each shop was decorated to the utmost level of ridiculousness in order to capture the attention and wallets of people just like myself. What lay ahead of me made the previous day’s trip to Tokyo seem like a stroll to the local grocery store. I glanced at my travel partner and sheepishly grinned, trying to hold back the full extent of my excitement. My glance was met with a wide eyed look of awe, as we shared our disbelief and prepared to immerse ourselves in a world of teetering skyscrapers, blaring techno music, blazing neon lights, gigantic stuffed animals and pink haired shop assistants.

To my left beckoned a clothing store, fittingly named ‘Mad Hectic’. A menacing looking four storey building sprawled itself out in front of me, adorned with what would have to be at least two thirds of Tokyo’s neon lighting quota. In a last-ditch effort to maintain my sanity and the contents of my wallet, I attempted in vain to ridicule its nonsensical title. “Hah, what a joke!” I scoffed, trying to keep up a sensible shopper façade. Seconds later I found myself entering the store and mysteriously emerging with five shirts, a pair of pants and no memory of anything that happened in the previous 30 minutes.

After doing some irreparable damage to the contents of our wallets and getting laughed at by locals for our bizarre tourist behaviour, (“LOOK AT THE PATTERN ON THE SEWER COVER! LET’S TAKE A PICTURE! “), we decided it was time for a well-earned break in one of Harajuku’s famous crepe cafés. Once inside however, Harajuku syndrome struck again and thirty minutes later we emerged dazed and confused as to why we decided to order and inhale a ‘crepe cheesecake sensation’, EACH. If by chance, you find yourself wondering what this specifically contains, I will put my guilt aside and enlighten you. A crepe cheesecake sensation consists of a crepe (sensible enough), covered in maple syrup (slightly sugary, yet acceptable), smothered in vanilla ice-cream (okay, enough now), sprinkled with chocolate buttons (time to search family history for diabetes) and then topped with a slice of cheesecake. Rest assured, we have no idea how we are still alive either.

The rest of our time in Harajuku was spent asking each other multiple times where the pancreas is located, looking up ‘signs of diabetes’ on the internet and getting asked to become hair models by a Japanese woman with a faux British accent. All of this and we still managed to find time to wine and dine at the ‘BBQ Ranch Wicked Wings All You Can Eat Buffet’, overlooking a twenty story high giant robot replica and a mini golf course situated on top of a skyscraper.