Wednesday, May 12th, 2010

Harajuku and Yoyogi Park

On Sunday I spent the day in Harajuku and walking with hundreds of Tokyo residents in the beautiful Yoyogi Park. The park is slap bang in one of the busiest areas of Tokyo within spitting distance of Shibuya and Harajuku and around 10 minutes walk from Shinjuku a major shopping area and with the largest railway station you ever want to get lost in. Yet this park is a peaceful oasis where kids run and play, people walk, sit and throw frisbies and laughter fills the air. The Japanese laugh a lot – and the sound of laughter is something that I really noticed here.

Harajuku didn’t offer up quite the wealth of photo opportunities I had hoped for but I still got some great images. Click here to view the final Tokyo 2010 gallery.

Helen Bradley

Wednesday, December 31st, 2008

Akemashite omedeto gozaimasu


Happy New Year!

This year marks my second year in Tokyo for New Years. This time I’m lucky enough to be staying at the Park Hyatt Hotel in Shinjuku. Featured in Lost in Translation it is as beautiful and wonderful as shown in the movie.

Here are a batch of my photos. Starting out with a couple snapped at Harajuku yesterday. It’s the home of Cosplay – costume play and such a fun place to hang out.

Reflections abound in this city of skyscrapers:


These drink machines are everywhere and sell some very interesting and colourful drinks:


Love this inside neon sign – some things look very different when lit up:


This time I’m finding a lot more graffiti around. Some angry, some artistic and some colourful:




I think this is a old bowling alley sign, the alley is long gone but the sign is still there…


Very strange indeed. There was a whole wall dotted with these signs. Not sure what these guys did but I imagine it wasn’t good!

Helen Bradley