Shibuya, a high-strung, fast-paced district of Tokyo, is the birthplace of countless consumer and pop-culture trends. Shibuya Crossing, the area directly in front of Shibuya Station is the world’s busiest intersection. With its multi-story Starbucks, fifty-foot high television screens, and bright neon, it is one of the most popular images of Tokyo.

Predictably, such an area draws many young people and features countless trendy boutiques and shops. In addition to their respective main department stores, Shibuya’s Tokyu and Seibu also own a number of other properties around Shibuya:

• The hip Shibuya 109, operated by Tokyu, a trend-setting complex aimed at young women and featuring ten floors and over 100 different boutiques.
• Tokyu Hands, a “lifestyle store” offering housewares, hobby supplies, stationary, and a variety of other items.
• Parco, a large, multi-building Seibu-run complex hawking all the latest styles.
• Loft, Seibu’s take on a Tokyu Hands-style store.

Of course, there are also countless independent shops not affiliated with either of the two goliath department stores.

I didn’t head to Shibuya to buy the hottest clothes, though. In addition to the hip boutiques and enormous department stores, Shibuya is also home to two of the biggest record stores in Japan: HMV and Tower Records, both names no doubt familiar to most westerners. Since I’d heard good things about it, I headed to HMV.

There, I found six huge floors filled with CDs (and even actual viynl records) of every genre of music imaginable. On the first floor, the latest Japanese releases were prominently featured at listening stations and special displays. Further inside, long aisles held tens of thousands of rock, pop, dance, and other releases. An entire section was devoted soley to independent artists. I was amazed at the wide selection: in Cleveland, a “record store” was a chunk of the local shopping mall barely bigger than my bedroom or a small corner of a Barnes & Noble bookstore. At home, if I looked for practically anything that wasn’t a #1 hit, I would be told that the disc would need to be ordered in. Here, though, I was able to find every single artist I looked for, popular or not.

I quickly filled a shopping basket with way too many yen worth of merchandise and headed up to the second floor. Every bit as big as the first, it offered popular and rock music from American and dozens of other countries. This came as a shock, considering that most places in Cleveland offer either no imports at all or only a handful of English or Spanish-language dics that are left lying neglected in some back corner. Here, though, music from around the world was displayed prominently. A small cafe served up Starbucks-style drinks and pastries at tables which each had a pair of headphones and a selection of music to listen to while you enjoyed your coffee and cake and looked out over the bustling streets of Shibuya.

The remaining floors in the building were no less amazing: an entire floor was dedicated to jazz and classical music, another to DVDs released both in Japan and elsewhere. An entire wall was devoted to documentaries and was lined with thousands of discs from the genre that barely gets any shelf space in American stores. There was a stage for live performances and an on-site radio studio where live FM broadcasts were occasionally produced.

Eventually, though, I knew I had to leave before I spent every yen I had on me, so I paid for my basket full of purchases and left with my wallet a few 10000-yen bills lighter. Before, having nothing to compare it to, I thought the selection at the new fye in my local mall was pretty good. I don’t think I’ll look at it in quite the same way anymore.

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.