Sunday fun day

Where's Willow?

 After finally having a bit of a relaxing start to the day, a sunny Sunday meant we were headed back to Harajuku and Yoyogi Park, as that's the place to be on a Sunday, and today was extra special and busy as it was their Tokyo Rainbow Pride day!   

We hopped the subway to Omotesando again and walked down a much more crowded street than it had been on early Thursday morning when we had just arrived! 

With heaps of people and lots of colour there were happy vibes on the walk up to Yoyogi Park. We saw the rockabillies that we have the other times we have been here - in 2010 and 2019. Pretty sure they are the same ones because they are getting ooooold (like us I guess 😂).

Willow getting into her sushi

With an hour or so before the pride march kicked off, we couldn't help but think, oh we are right around the corner from the Kura Sushi train! And since Willow has made a decent effort at experimenting with some new food (at least with sushi), we went back! 

After another cheap and successful ride on the Kura Sushi train, we joined the masses as we watched the parade and slowly made our way back to Yoyogi Park. Quite different to Sydney's mardi gras, it was much a more understated parade per se, but super family friendly and seemed to have a lot of allies marching as well so it seemed like a very supportive environment, which I think has slowly improved over the last decade or so.

Crossing the road with the masses was fun!

Relaxing in Yoyogi Park

Tokyo Rainbow Pride fair

Tokyo Rainbow Pride 2024

There was also a massive pride fair on with heaps of stalls - it seemed similar to Fair Day in Sydney, but without the asbestos. Not one to let a marketing opportunity be missed, we noticed that a lot of the stalls and groups marching in the parade were by companies or brands. So you would see companies like Yamaha, Astra Zeneca or LVMH waving their rainbow flags. I think they were company employees (and their families) who were not necessarily part of the gay community themselves but were encouraged to take part in support, which is a very positive thing to do, and it doesn't hurt to keep your brand visible of course!

Spy the Mario Karts!

Shibuya scramble crossing!

Pretty sushi

By now some clouds were starting to come over so we walked over to nearby Shibuya, with the famous and massively busy Shibuya scramble crossing. Willow was asleep in the pram last time we took her here so I'm glad she experienced it this time! There were a few rain drops by now so we stopped in at an ever faithful Hub for a cleansing shochu to rest our weary legs before making our way home. For dinner, we stayed closer to home in Akasuka, and enjoyed some very pretty sushi :)