Akihabara Electronic City
A filling in day, where we tried to go back to do various things we'd decided we wanted to spend more time on earlier in the week.We tried the Japanese breakfast from our hotel. A little strange. I gave it a try, but I admit to preferring sausage and eggs.
We went back to Korakuen which, despite searching the entire banking
district of Tokyo, contained the only cash machine we'd found that would
work with our cards (UK visa cards have more digits in their number than
most Japanese machine can cope with). One lady from our hotel had tried
27 different machines with no success. While we were there, we checked
up on the roller coaster again. No luck.
Kitted out with money, our first proper stop was the electronics shopping
area of Akihabara. Every gadgeteers
dream. Every size of capacitor, nut, loud speaker, gizmo, gadget and sproket
under the sun, and a few which really ought to only exist in the nightmares
of geeks and not trouble this earth.
Finally, we went to another cos-play cafe for lunch. This one didn't have as good service, but the costumes were much cuter - our waitress was dressed up as a demon, wings and horns included, in honour of halloween.
Tokyo Tower (again)
This time we went up to the top viewing station. Even better views.
Had fun playing around with some of the more obscure features of
Louise's camera.
Reiyukai Temple
This was a strange roofed temple we'd noticed from the tower, and decided
to visit since it was in the area. It turns out that
Reiyukai
is a very active and living sect of Buddhism. It bears the same sort
of resemblence to mainstream Buddhism as Protestantism or maybe even
the Quakers do to mainstream Catholicism, in that they don't believe
the life of a monk and studying god's word is only for a select ordained
few. We had a long conversation with one of the temple administrators
and left feeling positively impressed, and very much more educated about
the state of religion in Japan today.
Shinjuku
We proceeded to the Shinjuku area and explored it to find a place to eat
supper by following three rules:
As a result of which, we ended up in a Shabu-Shabu restaurant. This was
similar to our earlier beef meal, except that instead of cooking directly
over hot iron, the center of the table contained an electric hob and a pot
of boiling water, in which you briefly dipped your thin slices of meat and
vegetables. Have you ever tried to mime a cow, to indicate you want beef?
The meal came with wine and a desert, which we spent ages trying to guess
the flavour of, before finding out that it was passion fruit not melon,
banana or peach.
Roppongi
Slightly drunk we wandered back to our hotel via Roppongi. I entirely
failed to persuade Louise to join me in a Karoke bar. Next time I shall
have to order extra wine for us. *evil laugh*
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