“Harajuku” makes you want to just “throw it all in the bag”!!

Shopping, High fashion, Bright lights, and busy streets is what makes up to be considered Tokyo’s famous shopping district. I love fashion and I enjoy shopping for new clothes, so my first question for Tokyo was, where is the best place to shop? The answer I received weeks before my arrival was Harajuku! I was instantly impressed with the selection and style of clothing store/shops this area had to offer. Name almost any high-end fashion brand in the U.S and they had it here. The sizes of the stores of some of these top brands were very impressive. I was excited to find one of the brands that I’m loyal to, Ralph Lauren Polo. The size of this store was massive. The first floor consisted of some of the most expensive men clothing that Ralph Lauren has to offer, with the second floor being women’s. The presence of the building stood out on the street because of the size and lighting. Another top brand located in this store was Nike, and they had a store designed like no other I have seen in the US. Bright colors, lights and shoes were located everywhere. I found it very unique that the top floor of the store was designated for customers to come in and design their own type of Nike shoe.
As we traveled further up the block I noticed the designer stores were more of the most expensive brands we find in our high-end malls in the US, designers such as Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Fendi, and Dior. The design of these stores were incredible and I couldn’t help but to stop into Gucci and Loui to see what type of products that had to offer different from the U.S. There wasn’t much difference but each store was larger that the ones I have seen with them having two floors allowed them to have many different designs of products to choose from.
Harajuku is an area designed for shopping, and it reminded me of a massive outdoor shopping mall. There are small alleys of specialty shops and boutiques where I found exclusive shoes and clothing that you cant find in the U.S. Before I arrived to Tokyo I thought I would discover a huge price diffrence in clothing compared to America. My reason for thinking that was because a lot of products are made here in this country that we receive in America. But that’s not that case, clothing and shoes are priced the same as in the States. The first day in Harajuku we didn’t have much time to explore and shop do to time constraints of the program but we gained knowledge of the railroad system later that night from our professors and by just studying the map for a few minutes. After we understood the system we traveled back to Harajuku the next day on our own and it was a successful trip there without getting lost.