Guitars and Ginza

We slept in this morning woke to a cloudless blue sky and sunshine. Yippee!

We headed straight for the train station hoping to pass a crepe van on our way as breakfast. But no such luck- google maps took us a different way and the lack of choice meant it was a hurried iced chocolate on the way to catch the train to deliver Mitch to Tokyo’s ‘guitar street’ where everyone had finally agreed he could spend the day.

It was a real pain getting there - switching between 3 different metro lines which required buying a different ticket before each leg. It took way longer than we’d expected and involve a lot more walking!

Guitar street was exactly as it’s name described - both sides of a street lined with guitar shops. Mitch couldn’t wait for us to leave so he could begin to try them out.

The three girls then headed for the nearby ‘Village Vanguard’ - a shop crammed with the wacky, cute, useful and nostalgic. We spent a good couple of hours examining all the wares and buying some small souvenirs.

It was then a short walk in the sunshine to the origami workshop - a 5 story building in which the paper is made, painted and folded. It was lovely to see something traditionallyJapanese along the in this modern city! Then back to the station and onward to Tokyo station where we explored Character Street - small shop and shop dedicated to cute; Hello Kitty, Snoopy and many other line drawings that I’m unfamiliar with. We loved walking and looking but didn’t buy anything.

Next stop - Ginza. It was such a pleasure to be back - and such a thrill to introduce it to Alex. We walked along the elegant main boulevard pointing out all the high fashion houses represented in extraordinarily designed buildings. But it was when Alex caught sight of the Kate Spade store, she literally screamed. One wallet later we left and Alex couldn’t have been more thrilled.

Then it was time to head back to Mitch- who had called in love with a guitar in our absence and wanted to show us all he had experienced.

By the time we left it was dark and no one had eaten properly all day, but the kids insisted they weren’t hungry yet.

So we headed across town to the electronics district of Akihabara - on our way home - and paid a visit to one of the most iconic buildings - the 9-story electronics store. The idea was to all get a foot massage on the top floor, but it turned out they only had enough time for one- so Alex enjoyed 25 minutes of soothing massage on her feet while Mitch, Charley and I explored the other floors. By the time Alex had finished everyone was starving so we paid a visit to the 8th floor restaurants. It was hard to reach a consensus but ramen won and we enjoyed a delicious flavoured bowl each. This was their first ramen and it was declared a success with Mitch asking if we could have it every night for the rest of the trip.

By the time we reached the hotel we were all exhausted with everyone (except Alex) complaining of very sore feet and aching legs.Read more