Harajuku

While up in Tokyo over New Years, my buddy Erin and I headed to Harajuku (a shopping area of Tokyo for teens and people in their early 20s) to see what was going on.
We wandered down a side street and passed what I thought was just a group of punks, but Erin recognized one of the guys as being Kid Yamamoto. Kid is a very famous Japanese fighter from Pride (a fighting circuit somewhat similar to Ultimate Fighting in NA).
We chased him down and asked if we could take a picture. He seemed reluctant, but allowed us to anyways. I think he was pretty surprised to be approached by foreigners. Apparently he's a bit of a bad-ass in the ring, but fortunately for him, he was smart enough not to try any moves on us. I would've felt guilty having to embarrass him in front of his friends ;)

Mime in Tokyo

While we were wandering around near Yoyogi station in Tokyo, we came across this mime standing out front of the station. He would stand still and only moved when he wanted to mess with the tourists after someone had thrown cash in his cup. The outfit was incredible. He looked just like a statue. It was pretty cool, although, personally, I would go nuts standing there all day like that.

Japanese Cartoon Characters

While walking around Tokyo last month, I came across a toy store that had human-size statues of many of the most popular Japanese cartoon characters.
I took pictures of two of them, as these two are merchandised in just about every way you can think of.
The first one, Doraemon (no idea what it means), is a blue cat. The second one, Ampanman (Red Bean Jam Bread Man), has friends that are all different kinds of food.
Kawaiiiiiiiii! (really annoying expression used by Japanese women meaning cute)

Nikko

Nikko is a tiny little town about 2 hours north of Tokyo, famous throughout Japan for its shrines, the most famous one being Toshogu. My buddy Erin and I made a day trip there while I was in Tokyo over the New Year's holidays.
The first picture is of the famous monkeys, "Hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil," which is just inside the entrance of Toshogu Shrine. Nikko is also usually a good spot to see Japanese monkeys, however we didn't see any.
The last picture I took inside one of the shrines. Someone had made a tiny snowman and what I think is supposed to be a rabbit.

Yanaka Cemetery

I spent the week leading up to New Year's in Tokyo. While wandering around the northeast part of the city (north of Ueno), I came across this huge cemetery which was basically deserted.