Shibuya

Walking into Shibuya yesterday nearly got me killed. In Japan the pedestrian crossings are striped but so are the crossings at traffic lights. So sometimes your brain will misfire and you'll walk on a red man thinking you're on a zebra crossing. Of course the car about to hit me didn't stop until the very last moment, obviously hoping for me to leap out of the way spectacularly and leave the stroller to explode in the fiery collision. Japanese people are very polite and courteous to your face but somewhat less so when behind the wheel.

Shibuya is a main shopping district and is extremely crowded. I don't think I've ever seen so many people as in Shibuya on a Sunday night. Thankfully it is slightly less crowded on a weekday morning. I was planning to buy a mouthguard as I'd lost mine again and had seen a sports store around there somewhere. I was hoping my hunting and tracking skills hadn't regressed too much in the last 100,000 years.

Here's a sign for a store which creates an altogether wrong image in my mind.

I only wish that these existed. It would make doing the shopping a little easier.

Three, two, one, blast off.