Yoyogi Park and Earth Day Market

Today's our wedding anniversary so when my wife suggested she wanted to go and visit the Earth Day Market in Yoyogi I had no choice but to go along.

After negotiating Tokyo's most recent addition to its already sufficient underground network, the Fukutoshin Line, we arrrived at Omotesando station. Stepping out of the station into the Saturday crowds was like arriving in some foreign country, so many affulent foreign faces of all nationalities were swarming the streets doing whatever it is that one does in Omotesando.

...I felt quite out of place.

The Earth Day Market was located round the back of one of the old Olympic Stadiums and comprised of two rows of stalls. It had a farmer's market type feel and alongside the expected offering of seasonal vegetables there were stalls selling organic cotton clothing, organic wine (Japanese and foreign), organic beer and various other craft type stalls.

Although the market wasn't as large as we'd expected it was certainly interesting and great to see people taking the initiative to get the farmer's market thing going in Tokyo. Check out the website at www.earthdaymarket.com/ unfortuantely only in Japanese at but the dates of forthcoming market days are easy to find. A map link is also included.

We then attempted to walk back towards Shinjuku, and home, through Yoyogi Park. The park is great as it has a slightly wild feel to it but a word of warning: there's no way of getting to the Yoyogi station area through the park. We ended up on a massive 3km detour from the north west(?) exit walking alongside the expressway to get to Kita-Sando station.

Not much fun with two young children and a pushchair!