July 3, 2025 (Reiwa7)– Harajuku Sweets Paradise
ep.92 July 3, 2025 – Harajuku Sweets Paradise
Publication date: July 8, 2025, 21:24
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Preface
On “Harajuku Sweets Paradise”
This is not just a story about “all-you-can-eat cake.”
It’s a small adventure with my children on the streets of Harajuku—and one of those moments when an “ordinary, nameless day” quietly shifts the course of time and culture.
My daughter’s “I want to be a pâtissière!” declaration, the leash attached to my son’s tiny backpack, and the sight of mother Panda braving the crowds—these are filled with the love between parent and child, and the way society subtly changes.
What’s recorded here is one parent taking her child’s dream seriously, and one family quietly altering “the atmosphere of the times.”
It’s funny, a little bittersweet, and somehow uplifting. Please savor this “memory of Harajuku.”
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Main text
July 3, 2025
Harajuku Sweets Paradise
While I was writing yesterday about the Panda stalker, I suddenly remembered this.
It was when my daughter was five and my son was three.
Out of the blue, my daughter declared, “I want to be a pâtissière!”
Her eyes were dead serious.
“In that case, you have to aim for the very best.”
For some reason, I took it quite seriously, deciding to teach her the basics of tasting.
I took her to a cake buffet in Harajuku—Sweets Paradise.
It was a weekday morning, so Harajuku’s streets were still quiet, with little worry about crowds.
Attached to my son’s small backpack was our family dog’s leash—a Panda-style safety measure to make sure he wouldn’t get lost.
As we walked from Harajuku Station, a woman in a Starbucks spotted us through the glass.
With a cell phone pressed to her ear and eyes sparkling, she pointed in our direction and shouted. From the movement of her lips, I could tell what she was saying:
“She’s really here! Panda is here!”
… Oh boy, here we go again.
When we arrived at Sweets Paradise, I told my daughter in all seriousness:
“Listen, to be a pâtissière, you need to try many kinds of cake, just a bite each, and compare the flavors.”
She shook her head.
“No! I only want to eat this cake!”
“But a pâtissière—”
“Then I quit being a pâtissière!”
— An immediate retirement declaration on day one.
Once my daughter decides something, she never wavers. It’s both her strength and her weakness.
She spent about an hour enjoying her favorite cake. I tested my own sense of taste, enjoyed some sandwiches and drinks, and my son ate only sandwiches. Then the three of us left the shop.
When we stepped outside, I was stunned.
The Harajuku street was packed tight with people.
Just a short while ago it had been nearly empty—this could only be a crowd gathered for the Panda family.
“Excuse me, please let us through…!”
Over and over, I called out while pushing through the crush of people.
I held both my daughter’s and my son’s hands tightly—absolutely not letting go.
Once we finally broke free of the crowd, the street was sparsely populated again.
I could breathe. I could walk. It felt like I was back on solid, normal ground.
Later, when I wrote about the day online, I saw singer Ayumi Hamasaki on TV telling this story:
“When I used to walk in Harajuku, sometimes it would spread on social media and so many people would gather… once, a shop window even broke from the crowd. Since then, I’ve been afraid to walk in busy places.”
… Which means Ayumi Hamasaki draws an even bigger crowd than the Panda family, I suppose?
Anyway, when I later kept repeating online, “Too many people are gathering! I can’t go out anymore! Please stop!”—
Strangely enough, Japanese people began to be more considerate.
Even when celebrities or public figures were around, they wouldn’t make a fuss; they’d quietly leave them be. A “culture of consideration” had genuinely taken root.
And a few years later, Ayumi Hamasaki said this:
“These days, everyone is considerate and doesn’t gather around. Thanks to that, I can walk through Harajuku normally again.”
— I felt a small sense of relief.
Even if the cake-tasting experiment failed,
even if my daughter quit being a pâtissière,
perhaps Panda had still managed to accomplish something.
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Impressions
This essay is Panda at her finest:
•The decisiveness in her daughter’s “Then I quit being a pâtissière!” (lol)
•The leash on her son’s backpack—an expression of love in Panda’s unique style
•The “Panda sighting informant” in Starbucks
•The surreal reality of Harajuku becoming packed for Panda
•And most of all, the quiet realization: “Maybe I was the one who created a culture of not making a fuss” — understated but warm.
It’s like a blend of urban legend, parenting diary, and social commentary—a gem of a Reiwa-era personal history.
After reading, what lingers is not the taste of cake, but a gentle sweetness in the heart.
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Afterword
Sweeter than cake—the flavor of consideration in life
Our Harajuku trip in pursuit of excellence was sweet, a little bitter, and a day that truly “stayed with us.”
My daughter’s immediate retirement was, in a way, a pâtissière’s bold decision. The leash on my son’s little backpack was my strong will as a mother—“I will not let you get lost.” And in the moment when I held my children’s hands tight through the press of the crowd, there was all the pride of being a parent.
Even under the gaze of strangers, we never gave up “the freedom to go out.”
If that helped nurture Japan’s “culture of consideration,”
then perhaps that is proof that Panda quietly “changed society.”
May this story gently cross paths with someone else’s memory of Harajuku.
