Day Twenty-One: Tokyo (It's not so bad once it's in your mouth)

Again we were up at 9am, but this time with purpose - our Tokyo Free Guide, was meeting us in the flower shop of the Keio Plaza at 10. We managed to get there just before she arrived. We had worked out a vague itinerary through email, so she immediately took us to our first destination - Shinjuku Central Park - which of course is located in western Shinjuku.

Despite being late winter, thus no cherry blossoms were out, it was a very beautiful place - testimony to this was the large amounts of people with impressive cameras, lenses and tripods, patrolling around and taking photos.

We eventually moved on, headed for Shinjuku station, via a few stores, including a vast food court full of expensive sweets (causing Ali to remark "I can't wait to come back to Japan when I'm rich"), as well as a rather Ikea like store that also sold food and clothes - where we got some apple crisps, and these delecious mini dried fish with peanuts;

Eventually we got to Shibuya from Shinjuku station, and caught a bus to Daikanyama - a district which was new to us. It was filled with trendy clothes stores, as well as some kooky little places that sold all manner of bizzare things - including a replica of the Terminator's head from Terminator 2, rabbit fur hats, and thankfully - Cherry Cola! We found a store selling amazing (and expensive) t-shirts, unfortunately, my gaijin dimensions got the better of me, as their sizes did not accomedate my lankyness.

We returned to Shibuya by train, and after an excellent ramen lunch, started to walk towards Harajuku. We looked into the small, interesting shops along the way - these were places we never would have found without Yuko - previously we had been rather dissapointed and jaded with Harajuku. We ended up at Harajuku station, and went up to the bridge nearby to see the strangely dressed girls who come out of the wood work on Sundays. We were quite late, so most of them were gone, but we did see a few, including a pack of girls dressed in pink, squatting and feeding each other;

From Shibuya, we headed to Akihabara - passing the usual rabble of people handing out pamphlets, and creepy maids. We ended up in a small, multi storey shopping centre, much like the one we went to on our first trip to Akihabara with Nik. After passing through a few floors of strange, we stumbled across a performance by a wanna-be J-Idol, singing to her fans (mostly creepy dudes) from a small stage. As with all things in Akihabara, it was an odd experience.

We eventually parted ways with Yuko at Akihabara station, where she presented us with some of her favourite snacks she had bought earlier on, we felt quite guilty about having nothing for her, but we thanked her heartily for what was a great day around Tokyo.

After relaxing for a bit at Keio Plaza, we headed to Ebisu, to find a Katsu restaurant I had read about online. We managed to find it with ease - it had a line of seats outside due to its popularity meaning people usually have to cue for a while. Thankfully it was about 9:30pm by the time we got there, so we got a table immedietly, and sat down to an awesome dinner of Tonkatsu (Pork katsu). The meal was expensive, but worth it, being our last in Japan for this trip. Afterwards we picked up some celebratory pastries at a bakery that was closing down for the night, and devoured them, to complete a night of culinary bliss.

-Dan

Day Twenty: Tokyo (What's so unnatural about the other Lawson?)

A lazy start, as we got up at 9, but didn't really get out of Keio Plaza 'til 10:30. After grabbing some breakky at the "Natural Lawson" down the road (not to be confused with the "Lawson Station" across the street from it), we headed for Akihabara. We wandered the street, again very much disturbed by the variety of "maids" handing out pamphlets for their maid cafes - especially scary were the ones with hair bleached pure blonde, a look that may be appealing to some, but looked quite terrifying to us. We wondered aimlessly for a while, stopping at a Taito arcade to play some Street Fighter 4 at one point.

We eventually ended up at the pork and noodles place we went to on the first day in Tokyo, which seems like ages ago now. The fatty pork was just as delicious as we remembered, and after draining our bowls, we left Akihabara, though I doubt for the last time.

The next place we headed for was Harajuku - I wanted to get some Ghibli toys for my nephew and nieces. After stopping by our hotel, we hopped on the Yamanote loop to Harajuku, and headed to Kiddyland - a five storey monstrosity of a toy store that we had been to previously. I ended up getting some plushies.

We eventually decided we should head to our hotel to relax for a bit before heading out again, both of us were still tired from our long journey. After a couple of hours chilling in our room, we set out to explore the area we were in - Shinjuku - a bit more. Heading west from the station, we ended up at a large stationary store, where Ali bought some Japanese paper for his folks. We again failed to find a restaurant reccomended in the Lonely Planet Tokyo book, due to it's incredibly vague maps and descriptions, so we decided to head to the Hobgoblin bar in Shibuya - owned by the small, British, Wychwood Brewery. For the third time this trip, we had a burger, this time accompanied by a pint Hobgoblin beer - which was very nice.

We proceeded to a club called Gaspanic in Shibuya, but after a beer we decided it wasn't our thing, and left for Shinjuku, ready to be up early for what was to be a busy day.

-Dan