For breakfast we visit a little cafe down the street. Mom has an egg salad sandwich with ham, while I have waffles and fruit, with OJ. We meet an martial arts instructor who gives a few tips on snacks to buy at a 7-eleven, where we stock up for the Tokyo train ride.
After checking out, the owner comes out to bow, and gives us a parting gift.
Before buying tickets to Tokyo we take a quick detour to the post office near the station. The train is pretty uneventful, except we get off one station before the end of the line... I suppose that with a tokyo subway map we could have negotiated the trip, but since this was before our experience on the tokyo subway, we hopped back on and continued to the end.
1:00 pm. In tokyo station we learn about different subway lines and train lines from a little japanese man who gives us advice on how to get to our hotel. Change at the mita stop, and continue to shibakoen exit.
We're a bit early at the hotel check in. Our room's on the 24th floor: 2423. Nice room. View is good, but could be better.
We plan a little, and then head off on what, in the end, becomes a subway tour of Tokyo.
2:30. First up, Shinjuku. Shinkjuku is one of the busiest locations in Tokyo, with millions of people visiting the station every day. It also has Tokyo's biggest collection of sky scrapers. It takes us a while to get our bearings, then we watch people for a minute before heading off...
4:00. Next up, Shibuya. Shibuya is Tokyo's time square. The crowds flow back and forth across the busy intersection. Google's office is nearby, so I take a slight detour to visit. On the way back I'm snacking on a lemonade and some pretzels when I realize that I haven't seen anyone eating on the streets since I've been in asia. I finish up a little more quickly, and before we leave we stop at the starbucks next door to watch the crowds flow again.
6:00 pm. By this time it's rush hour, and we pick up a fairly packed JR train to Akhibara. Akhibara is the place to pick up electronics and computer parts. It's starting to get cold. We check out a few stores, and I can find similar prices in the US, and I'm not really shopping, just looking.
We wander for a while, and see a lot of girls dressed up in cute costumes. Mom finally takes a brochure and asks what they are doing. It turns out that this is advertising for the japanese maid cafes. The original idea is that the servers wear maid costumes and address customers as "master".
8:00 pm. For dinner we went in search of a tempura place I saw in the guidebook, but were then derailed by a helpful japanese woman who lived in Oregon. She said that Asakusa was known for tempura, and so we headed up there. We saw a small gate, surrounded by market stalls. We walked a few blocks looking for a tempura shop, but if there were tempura shops, then they had closed--most stores closed at about 9 pm. We settled for a place that had fried pork. I ordered curry with rice and mom ordered fried pork with cabbage and mizo soup.
After dinner we begin the trek back to the hotel. We spent the day walking and riding subways, and we're worn out. It turns out that the view is much better at dark.
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