One of my favorite thing to do while living in Tokyo was to go to Harajuku and just watch all the crazy fashion trends. You name it and people wore it from frilly gothic lolita costumes, gangro girls or women who had extremely bleach blond hair and skin tanned so much that they looked like Oompalumpas from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. It was complete and total sensory overload especially since Tokyo by no means a small city and Harajuku is one of the gathering points for the 35 million residence of greater Tokyo. On Sundays it ad become an almost tradition for the fashionistas of Tokyo to come out and showcase themselves. The crazier dressed always gathered on a bridge outside of Meji Shrine just outside of the Yamanote and Chuo line station. This attraction drew both Japanese and Gaijin or foreigners and up until late Feburary was a popular thing to do to kill time on a Sunday morning. After February however, the Tokyo metropolitan government decided to stop this gathering. The official reason was to prevent another tragedy like what happened in 2007 with the Akihabara stabbing incident but quite a few Japanese people I talked to suspected it was to boost images with the Olympic Committee in hopes of getting the 2016 Olympic bid. a few weeks after the government had police staffed on the bridge, the weekly showcase of “fashion” ended. While a few people still tried to show their costumes off, their efforts were futile as the police would just chase them off.
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