The Toilet Tried to Eat Me

If day one was old Tokyo, today was the modern end of Tokyo with all the crowds, lights and tourist attractions I’d expected.

(Staying in Asakusa is nice and peaceful, but it’s a decent train journey to get anywhere. I’d perhaps recommend somewhere more central to anyone considering a visit. Price and availability not withstanding.)

Our money finally arrived on the second travel card which was a relief!

Also our amazing heated, automatic, self flushing electronic toilet seat malfunctioned today and the lid tried to close on me - pushing me into it.

I escaped, but now I don’t trust it. 😒

Started the day with another jog with Krissi along the river - and a cooler morning meant it was a lot more enjoyable than yesterday.

Back to the house via Starbucks and off on the train to Shibuya Sky for the Observation Deck. This was stunning and gave us 360 views of the city. At least what we could see of one of the largest cities in the world. I think I personally saw more people today walking the streets of Tokyo than live in the entire city of Adelaide.

After the observation deck we made it through the souvenir shop unscathed and made our way to the famous Shibuya crossing. Took some photos and a video.

It was fine I guess, I mean in Adelaide we have the intersection of Pulteney and Rundle Street - same same…😜

Every brand you can imagine has a ‘flagship’ store near Shibuya City and I’m proud to say I bought nothing at all apart from food! Ben, however, is another story.

Ben went alone to Tower Records for 2 hours while Krissi, Clare and I strolled the area around and grabbed some lunch.

(Apparently you can smoke in some restaurants here. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should).

After we reconnected with Ben at Tower Records (6 stories, each one dedicated to a different genre or type of media) we paid his bill there (nearly $300 for a bunch of rare records he wanted) and wandered off towards the Yoyogi Park. We were all a little frazzled at this point so stopped for ice cream and some time out. Which included sitting by the dog park and watching a Samoyed play. When did we become dog people…

After that we walked to Harajuku for the Takeshita Street shopping. That’s awful, just tourist crap and people trying to convince you to go into their second hand clothes shops. Do not recommend.

However, this did include an Olivia Rodrigo pop up store (she was in Japan this weekend) which was the highlight of Clare’s day. They were mostly sold out of everything, which was a relief. Clare and Krissi are going to see Olivia in Sydney when we get back, so this built some excitement for Clare.

As we made our way home we stumbled on Tokyu Plaza - which was on the list for earlier in the day.

So there went another 3 hours of shopping and exploring. At one point when we were at the lookout from one tower flocks of birds (1000s) directly arrived in the tree across the road. Super random and very loud. No one seemed alarmed so it must be a daily occurrence.

Finally about 6:30pm we had definitely all had enough so caught the train an hour back to Asakusa and some dinner in a small laneway bar. Had Japanese pancakes and my first beer in 10 days.

Disneyland tomorrow so everyone in bed before 10pm.

28 thousand steps today after 26 thousand yesterday. Feet are sore!Leggi altro