Tokyo’s Harajuku district is famous for a number of things - the costumed teenagers who each Sunday afternoon stand on the bridge in front of the station, the famous Omotesando shopping street, and the beautiful Meiji Jingu being among the most famous. I came to see all three.

Walking out the main entrance of JR’s Harajuku Station, I immediately found myself in the middle of a crowd of cosplayers and street performers. The cosplayers come in a variety of styles, ranging from gothlic lolita to visual kei. Street musicians wander among the crowds, carrying their guitars, microphones, and portable amplifiers with them as they go. Someone in an orange spacesuit makes a glass orb appear to hover in the air and move without being touched while moving hypnotically. A group offers “free hugs” to passersby, but I don’t see anyone take them up on it. Near the entrance to Yoyogi Park, a group of breakdancers blasts a boombox and puts on a show for the crowd gathered around them. It’s a good arrangment - the people hanging around the Harajuku bridge and in front of Yoyogi Park are there to be seen and heard, and the thousands of tourists from Japan and abroad coming to Harajuku each weekend are there to stare at them, listen, and take pictures.

Just a few seconds away from these noisy crowds is the main entrance to the peaceful Meiji Jingu (明治神宮). Founded in 1920, Meiji Jingu enshrines the souls of Empress Meiji and his wife, Empress Shoken. Set within a 175 acre forest, the shrine is a perfect refuge from the hustle and bustle of Harajuku that surrounds it. Meiji Jingu is famous for being the home of Japan’s largest wooden torii, made out of beautiful hinoki (Japanese cypress). Several festivals are held throughout the year, and several million people visit on New Year’s. I was lucky enough to see a traditional Shinto wedding and some sort of special event involving traditionally costumed men, drums, and swords which no one I asked understood. I watched as people visting from around the world wrote their prayers and wishes on ema (絵馬), wooden boards hung for the gods (and mortals) to view, in dozens of languages.

After tossing a coin into the offering box and praying for the always popular goal of world peace, I started back toward the entrance to the shrine. Along the way, though, I paid the few hundred yen to enter the shrine’s garden. It was well worth the small entrance fee even though the Empress’ iris garden, the star attraction, was not in bloom. Perfectly manicured bushes, small, delicate bamboo fences, and a nice pond made for a pleasant walk. Meiji Jingu also has a treasure museum, but I didn’t stop and instead headed on to rejoin the frenzy outside along Omotesando.

The fashions here were somewhat more mainstream. The busy Omotesando is lined with expensive designer boutiques from the likes of Louis Vuitton and Gucci, trendy comsetic shops, and the modern Omotesando Hills shopping complex. Tourist trap Oriental Bazaar, a one-stop souvenier emporium selling lots of made-in-China reproductions of traditional Japanese goods (as well as some authentic items, though low quality ones), is also located along Omotesando and may be worth a look if you have people you feel obligated to buy souveniers for but don’t want to spend the money on high-quality items. Among the back streets and alleys along Omotesando are a variety of small restaurants, bars, and shops.

After exhausting the window shopping possibilities of Omotesando, I backtracked to the entrance to Takeshita Street, home to dozens of independent shops offering for sale many fashions of the style being worn by the cosplayers standing just a few blocks away. Even though the street is well under a kilometer in length, the throngs of teenage shoppers combined with my window shopping prevented me from reaching the end for the better part of an hour. The offerings from the stores along this street range from the strange to creepy, and anything remotely representing “normal” for any area of the world other than Harajuku is impossible to find here.

At the end of Takeshita Street, I pause to get something to drink at the Starbucks on the corner and reflect on the afternoon’s experiences. Harajuku is a place of sharp contrasts such as can only be found in Tokyo. Crazy youth fashions and loud rock music are separated from the traditional beauty of Meiji Jingu and its far more conservatively dressed visitors by a seemingly invisible line drawn across a strip of pavement. While in the middle of the Empress’ iris garden, it is easy to forget that you are only a few hundred feet away from a girl with bleached hair dressed as a vampire, and likewise it is difficult to imagine that a 175 acre forest could possibly exist just two minutes away when standing in the middle of a crowd on Takeshita Street. Japan is a land filled with contrasts like this, but the area around Harajuku Station is definitely one of the better places to experience this juxtaposition of seeming incompatible worlds.