Why do the news programs here have a camera on the anchor not reporting the story and showing him on screen? It's 10:23 p.m. here.
… I’ve had little trouble with adjusting to local time. Mainly because I stayed up late and got up after eight hours of sleep. Diamond, however, got up at 2 a.m. and it was partly my fault. I saw him fall asleep and just let him go. He would end up telling me later that I should have kept him up.
… When I awoke at 6 a.m. local time, I was actually ready to go. Our first excursion was a trip down to the nearby fish market. It is sort of like Fisherman’s Warf in San Francisco. I was hoping to bid on a delicious bass, but would find out that it was too late and the bidding was probably not open to the public.
We had breakfast there; a bowl of ramen which I thought was great. Then again, it is hard to screw up noodles and hot water. Although I know some that could.
… We walked back to the hotel and figured out quickly what to do next. We went to Shinjuku and after walking around – mostly because I got us lost – we made it to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building. It has two 45 floor towers. We went up one tower than the other and also took pictures of course. Until that time, we had just seen commercial buildings, but looking out on the city we could actually see residential areas.
We later walked into a Pachinko Slot machine parlor. Basically, it’s like going to Dave & Buster’s but it takes no skill what so ever and with no understanding of what is going on. I spent 1,000 yen, or about $11 to learn that lesson.
We walked around and ended up in another community called Kabukicho. There we saw a bit of everything. From bowling to … I guess what you would call companion bars. All within a four block area. It has something for everyone I guess.
… I entered the subway for the next trip when I had a run in someone that reminded me of a co-worker. I was picked off rather easily speaking English and this gentleman came up to me to help, without really asking if I needed it. Sound familiar to some of you. Like an idiot, I told him where we were going and sure enough he pointed out where to go, even though I knew where I was going. He took 200 from Diamond as a “service fee” for his help. I immediately gave Diamond back 200 since it was my fault. He never took my change since snagged it before he had a chance. HAWGH!
… We traveled down to Harajuku to go to the Meiji Shrine which called for a walk into a deep wooded area with a clear path. There we saw a huge 10 sided wall of prayers with people from all over the world on 3x5 inch blocks. The prayers were also stacked 10 deep to, so you can just imagine the number.
We walked down to Shibuya were we became a part of one of the biggest crosswalks I’ve ever been in; people from five different corners going.
After that, we went to go have dinner. We had another run with someone and me learning from what happened earlier, I spoke in Spanish to him, which confused him. After dinner then I had a taste of home by stopping off at a Cold Stone Creamery.
… We walked around the community when we saw a mall called Shibuya 109. Diamond saw a sign that said 109 restaurants and was surprised this building had so many places to eat. We went up to the top floor, the eighth, and found out that it was nothing like he had thought. It was stores for females, teenagers to be exact. Diamond has read in a tour book about a mall that was like that, but had forgotten the name until it was too late.
One of the stores was called titty&Co. If I could have gotten a picture of it without seeming creepier than I already am, I would have done it. I tried to sneak a photo but unfortunately I had left the flash on, so I’m sure that did it.
Not so far from that place was another Shibuya 109-2 and on the outside it said male clothes. I was skeptical but Diamond thought it had to be different and it made sense to have a separate mall for males.
The answer is, NOPE. I knew it was more of the same immediately when the two stores on the first floor were Hello Kitty and a Barbie clothing store, actual size. But we went to the top again and were faced with the facts.
… We got home and were tired. Tomorrow we are going to try and get to the Imperial Palace. Unfortunately we couldn’t get in since we didn’t know to make reservations until it was too late. But we are in for some more walking.
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