Tuesday was another long lie in. Though we did managed to get up and head into central Tokyo. Our first attempted stop was the Imperial palace gardens, despite the sign saying they were open, we were politely informed that they were closed. Disappointed, not especially. Darwin seemed to have an endless thirst for beer by this point. From there we wondered down through Hibiya-koen and towards Ginza which is an up-market shopping district. On the way we stopped of at the Godzilla statue. After much debate and me insisting that we where in the right place and must be standing on top of it we found possibly the smallest statue ever. Even smaller than the Dane’s Little Mermaid. Who says the Japanese don’t have a sense of humor.Â
Anyway Ginza is something like Regents street only an entire region rather than a single road. It’s got some pretty cool shops, there’s the Sony building for a start and just because I’m a sad Apple person there’s an Apple store now a days.Â
So there you go. We had yet another night of drinking with Jose and all of a sudden it was Wednesday.
So Wednesday starts, we drag our asses out of bed and then go to Ueno and spend the day wondering around the Tokyo National Museum. It’s a huge place. It is 4 rather large buildings and we managed to get around 1.5 of them in just over half a day. Nice collection of swords and other Japanese art. Cheap as well. From here we went down through Ueno park and to the Ameya-yokocho arcade. Prety much like a market, lots of hussle and bussle. We’d some strange cooked ball things which Darwin loved and I burnt my mouth on. Dewart was somewhat indifferent I think. We then wondered back though Ueno park so Darwin could see the Pagoda and the life size, plastic, Blue Whale outside the National Science Museum. After a couple of photos Darwin was happy and we headed back to meet Jose after work. Upon meeting Jose he took us along with his work colleagues for station beer. Basically go to the train station and have beer. Station beer is a strange and interesting thing. Unlike the UK there’s no problems with drinking in public. So you just wonder into the train station, buy some beer from a shop or vending machine, find somewhere to stand, drink the beer and watch the people go by and in Shinjuku that’s a lot of people. The closest thing in London is probably sitting in one of the bars in London Victoria watching people go past outside.. Though I believe this is only something done by Jose and his friends. Beer was followed by 100 Yen sushi, how cheap and good was that.. finished of with a western bar. It’s Thursday.. where is the time going?