Tokyo Trip part 8

The neighborhood we were in could not have been better. We stayed in Shibuya, which is famous for shopping and food, but our apartment was on a quiet street away from all the excitement. We were only a few blocks away from everything, but once you turned onto our street, life immediately moved slower. It was like being in a quiet residential neighborhood right next to all the downtown action.

We were an easy walk to the Shibuya JR station, but we were also pretty close to the Harajuku station. I think our apartment might have been right in the middle of the two, but we mostly used Shibuya because it was a bigger station that went to more places.

I'm not really sure what is south of Shibuya, but just north of our apartment was Yoyogi Park and the Meiji Shrine. The first time we went there, we took the JR from Shibuya to Harajuku, but then we quickly found out that we could easily walk to the park. The front entrance to the park was about the same walking distance as the Shibuya station.

The Meiji Shrine was very interesting. Ryan thought it looked like a Chinese temple, but I thought it was completely different. Chinese temples seem louder. Not only in the noise made by all the people, but in the design. This shrine was calm and relaxing. Chinese temples are rough and jagged. The Japanese people at the Meiji Shrine were far more reverential than I have ever seen anyone at a Chinese temple. You can easily walk around a Chinese temple without being the loud American because Chinese people are, by and large, far noisier. At the Meiji Shrine, we were effortlessly the loud Americans, even though half of us were Canadian.

It's interesting that Canadian's have no bad reputation anywhere when most of the world probably looks at Canadians and assumes they are American. I wonder how many obnoxious Canadians have wandered around, letting everyone assume they were American.