Alyssa's Favorite 15 Minute Walk: Yoyogi Park

A train approaching in the subway station near Yoyogi Park.

This week we're featuring a photo journal of our favorite 15 minute walk.  I'll take you through part of one of the largest parks in Tokyo, Yoyogi Park.  This is not a nature walk, though.  This walk, like Tokyo, is all about people (and dog) watching!

There's a very traditional Shinto Shrine just outside the southwest end of the park, which is where we'll begin our walk.  We climb stairs and cross under torii to enter the grounds of the Yoyogi Hachiman Shrine.  It's small but lovely, and we happened to catch a glimpse of a Japanese marriage ceremony.

The stairs and torii leading up to the shrine.

The Yogoyi Hachiman Jinga Shrine

A marriage ceremony in progress.

One of the koma-inu, or lion-dogs, that guard the entrance to Shinto shrines.

To get to Yoyogi Park, we pass through the cemetery on the Temple grounds.  Some of the statues are wearing red hats and bibs.  The color red is meant to expel demons, ward off illness, and bring good luck.

The cemetery.

Once we enter the park, we can't help but notice that there are dogs everywhere.  Not just normal dogs, though. Really, really well-dressed dogs.

Very fashionable dogs.  The one on the bottom is ready for Valentine's Day.

And humans are just as interesting as the dogs!  There are musicians playing drums and guitars, families on picnics, friends playing frisbee, dancers working on choreography, vendors selling street food, and soccer players wearing Mickey Mouse heads.

Mickey Mouse playing soccer.  And yes, the girl in the tulle skirt is also playing.

This kid is having way too much fun on a tandem bike.

Tokyo: where leather jackets aren't restricted to humans.

But one of the reasons that people head to Yoyogi park on Sundays is to check out the Greasers, a group of people that dress like 1950's American rockers (think the T-Birds in Grease).  They dress in black, grease their hair, wear leather jackets and form a dance circle.  I never said they were good dancers, though:

This concludes our walk, as we're now at the Harajuku subway station.  If we wanted to continue, the park has a lot more to offer.  It's also the home of the beautiful Meiji Jingu Shrine, Imperial Gardens (not much to look at in February), museums and ponds.  But I know that I've had enough excitement for today!

If you're up for more excitement, check out Carla's walk post.  Her story is also about my favorite San Francisco walk, and one that we used to do together all the time!

Harajuku Station.  Looks more like a building you would find in a Bavarian country, doesn't it?