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  • Day 35

    Yoyogi park, crossings and tiny bars

    November 3, 2019 in Japan ⋅ ⛅ 17 °C

    Went for a run first thing, first run I've done in a big city. Made the rule of if the green crossing man was lit, I would turn that way.
    That got me lost enough, but using a massive 60 story tower as reference it was easy enough to navigate home.
    Decided on 72 hour subway pass. Tokyo has either the metro underground like (circle symbols) or the JR lines (square symbols). This got us on the underground, which gets you to most places.
    We went to the Yoyogi park and shrine. Although nice, it was very crowded and there are more impressive shrines elsewhere in country that we have seen.
    We wandered down to the most famous crossing in Japan, the Shibuya crossing, where hundreds of people cross every minute. Manic!
    Both feeling a bit peckish, we found an automated Suchi restaurant. Loved this! Simply tap the photo of what you want on a tablet. A few minutes later it zooms out to you on a conveyor belt. Super tasty.
    Next we went to the Akihabara area. A huge number of electronics stores and anime figures. Plastic tat everywhere.
    Still not done with the day, we went to the Tokyo sky tree. A very impressive structure with a viewing platform at 450m up. We had great views st 350m, but it was a bit cloudy right at the very top.
    One of my friends Tom Ayre sent me a message saying he was in Tokyo so we left to grab a beer with him.
    He had been recommended a few streets with tiny pubs. The pubs fitted about 8 to 12 people max, very expensive. In the final one we were in a loft space with almost no headroom. We finished at about 12.45am. Found we had missed the last subway, and only 5% left on the phone. Figured out another route back and ran to catch the last train. Stressful end to the day.
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