Harajuku sometimes merges with Shibuya, as they are quite close and there is a very nice way to walk to and from Harajuku and Shibuya called Cat street. More regarding this lower down.
How to start exploring Harajuku. I would start with either one of two ways. Get off the Harajuku JR station and head to either Takeshita street or Meiji Jingu shrine. If you first want to take it easy and take a walk in a park and a shrine to get out of the city vibe, just go to Meiji Jingu shrine that is located right outside the south exit of the JR Harajuku station. You can take a walk here that goes around in a loop, and you will be back from where you came. Then you can proceed with exploring Harajuku and all the fashion that goes with it. Or you can start with Takeshita street, go through all that and at a later point walk through Meiji Jingu.
Just to give you an overview of the usual path that I really enjoy around Harajuku, it is like a “T”, where the left side of the top T is shorter, and the right side is longer. I start on the bottom of the T (Takeshita street), then explore a little bit of the left of the T. Then proceeding to the right side and explore all the areas there. If you continue on that direction, you will move towards Shibuya and finally arrive there. Along that way you have a very nice neighbourhood, Urahara, Omotesando and Cat street. I usually start from Takeshita street, walk through it. Then walk across a larger street that you get to after Takeshita street. This area is called Urahara, where you find a lot of streetware brands. Continue to the right and you will walk towards Omotesando. Then you will cross a pedestrian bridge over the main Omotesando street, over to Cat street. Walk around and through Cat street and you will arrive at the beginning of Shibuya. This is just a slight overview of the area and the locations that I like to explore. I will go a little bit more in-depth below.
The difficult thing with exploring these areas is that there are many parallel streets that run along this path. So you might miss some interesting stores on a street that run parallel to the one that you are exploring. As such, you could spend quite a lot of time in the Harajuku area.
Takeshita street and Urahara
Takeshita is the trendy spot that everyone has to go to. As mentioned in General tips, keep in mind that the weekend will make it so that Takshita street will be full of people, making it difficult to move forwards in the narrow street. This might be fun experience, depending on who you are. Takeshita street is very much an attraction, with a past history of being very trendy in terms of fashion. This notion is still something that you can experience in the streets, however, it has become more of a tourist spot with stores that cater towards tourists, still you might find interesting stores.
If you however seek the more fashion focused store, you should head towards Urahara (translated “behind harajuku”). These are the streets that are just down the street of Takeshita street. Just walk through Takeshita street, then cross the larger street that you find at the end of Takeshita street. Now you are in Urahara. Once you cross the larger street, go in a little bit and explore that streets that run parallel to the right (and some on the left hand side). Here you can find a lot of second hand stores and interesting fashion stores, with a lot of sneaker stores as well. The stores that are around this area have in recent years also been quite filled with tourists, but quite a lot less than Takeshita street. I would very generally categorize this area as being catered towards hypebeast style of clothing. If you proceed to walk on the area to the right (after you have crossed the larger street from Takeshita street), you will move towards another larger street called Omotesando. Just before arriving at Omotesando you will find a very large Ralph Lauren store that also has a Ralph Lauren cafe (although it usually has quite a long line). Tucked in behind the main streets of Urahara you can also find some fun brand stores like Onitsuka Tiger (3 branch stores in the area of 10m^2), Bape (streetwear brand with fun interior design), a very high end specialty coffee cafe called Mameya.
Once you reach Omotesando from the Urahara area, you could simply skip Omototesando by walking over the crossing bridge, or explore the high end shopping area. You will find quite a lot of high end fashion brands along the perpendicular street that run across.
Before continuing on to Omotesando, I would like to mention that you should also explore the crossing that intersects Harajuku, Omotesando and on the way to Shibuya. You will reach this crossing by walking to the right right when you reach the end of Takeshita steet, i.e. not walking across and into Urahara. You can also reach this crossing if you decided to enter Urahara and started walking towards Omotesando/Cat Street/Shibuya by walking to the right once you reach the Omotesando street. Here you will find two or three large shopping malls that look quite interesting, and a lot of people walking and crossing the streets, quite an interesting place to visit.
Exploring Omotesando
Exploring Omotesando might be something that you would like to do at a different time, or if you have the capacity and energy, at the same time. It runs along a large street that separates Urahara and Cat Street. Further, if you continue up the street of Omotesando you will arrive in the Omotesando area. Here, being a coffee nerd, I would recommend Blue Bottle (the same coffee chain that I recommend in Shibuya). They have a very nice cafe with very nice coffee. Around this area you will have more high end/avantgarde/japanese fashion brands like Comme des Garcons, Prada, Issey Miyake, Acne (Swedish) and more. There is also a museeum called Nezu museeum that I have been very interested in checking out, but never have. I’ve heard that they have quite nice architecture.
Continue to Cat Street
Coming back to the place where Urahara ended, if you walk across Omotesando by walking up the pedestriand crossing, you will reach the start of Cat street. I find this street even more insteresting that Takeshita street and Urahara. It has this very nice vibe that just feels like you are chilling. The streets, stores and building are quite small, giving off a very cozy vibe. Compared to other streets in Tokyo, it is not hustling and bustling. Basically people just chill here. Here you will also find some streets that run parallel to each other. Try to explore the smaller streets here as well. They have some very nice cafes here, including one that hosts a roastary inside (cafe name: The Roastery. However, it is more expensive here).
Food
I will simply list the places that I recommend, and the ones that I probably would want you to try if you have the time.
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Sushi Koharu (must) (lunch)
- A little bit further away. Very nice bowls of rice with sashimi on top for a very reasonable price with a cozy and traditional interior. Somewhat unreliable opening hours. But try to get here and get the four (or three) “color” bowls. You get to pick four different seafood items that you would like on top of the rice. Everything is in Japanese, so try to get Google translate here. Sometimes has a line. I haven’t tried their sushi (as I always get the bowl), but if they are as good as their bowls, I wouldn’t hesitate.
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Red Rock or Roast Beef
- Very similar style. I have only tried Red Rock. But both have insane reviews and review count. Roast Beef is probably more main stream as there is usually a very long line here. (Although from the pictures, Red Rock seems better?).
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Gyukatsu Momomura
- Have not tried, but just saw their insane review and review count. Gyukatsu is different from the traditional Tonkatsu where they use beef (Gyu) instead of pork (Ton). Not as crispy as Tonkatsu, but a different experience.
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YOSHI (must)
- Very trendy style of hamburger (aka minced meat patties. They call the meat “hamburgers” in Japanese). There is a different store in Shibuya that is almost always fully booked called Hikiniku to Come that started this style of meat patties. However, I would assume that that place is very similar to this. If you don’t decide to go there, go here.
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Shibuya Cast (lunch)
- If you fancy some food trucks, there are some that are open until around 14 or 14:30 (they do sell out, so go earlier if you decide to go here). This is located at the far end of Cat street, basically located at the beginning of Shibuya. There are different food truck here every day. For the schedule, see the link below. You can usually sit around that open space and eat. Don’t go too far off and eat. In Japan it is usually not appreciated if you eat in public spaces. What I recommend is “Jule’s spice” (Monday) and “Mr. Chicken” (Thursday).
- More info Shibuya Cast