Got up slightly earlier than yesterday (8am). Tried to catch up on news feeds and downloading of photos. But didn't do any sort of day planning or blog entry posting :( Met up with Nat and Andrew to decide what to do with the morning. Went and grabbed some food for the Stubie then we headed out. Decided on Maccas because that always seems like a safe place for breakfast :) But their bacon and egg McMuffins aren't actually muffins - they are these sweet rolls and they call them McGriddles. Weird :)
C11-292 Steam locomotive outside Shimbashi Station
Then hopped on a train one stop to Hamamatsucho. Went and found the Pokemon Centre but it wasn't open yet. Nat was very sad heh. So turned around and wandered in the direction of the Tokyo Tower. This led us through Zojoji temple so got some photos of the temple with the tower behind it :)
Zojoji temple and Tokyo Tower
Closeup of the upper observation deck of Tokyo Tower
Tokyo Tower
Got to the tower. It's 820 yen to go up to the "Main Observatory" (150m), but on the fine print it says you have to pay extra to go to the "Special Observatory" (250m) but they don't actually tell you how much it is. Sneaky bastards. Anyway we paid the 820 to go up and asked how much it was to go to the top (another 600 yen). Got up to the main deck and were amazed that we could see Shiny!!! Were pretty excited about that :) Paid the extra 600 yen and went to the top. This was actually really good. Beautiful 360 degree views and easy panorama making :)
Shiny!! from Tokyo Tower
Rainbow Bridge and Odaiba
Looking across to Shinjuku
Tokyo and Imperial Palace Gardens
Looking straight down from Tokyo Tower. Stu would not have liked this!
After we all took our fair share of photos we wandered down and then realised just how late in the day it was. So hurried back to the station and met up with Stu at Shimbashi. Went up to Kanda and transferred to the Chuo line for Kichijoji. It was (as usual) quite a while after lunch, so grabbed some food at an ampm - I had a bit of KFC-like chicken and some fruit salad in jelly.
Inokashira Park
Artist in Inokashira Park
Photo by Stu
Petal snow!!
Then made our way to the Ghibli Museum. You have to book in advance to see this place, and from your own country I believe. So Nat had organised this weeks ago. It was a pretty cool place, although frustrating because no photography allowed inside :( I've only seem two Ghibli movies, so really must see more of them. There's actually not too much content in the museum, but there's every chance we missed a whole section, as essentially it's just a random series of rooms with no way to be sure if you've seen them all. What was freaky is they seem let you touch a lot of the stuff. So the artists studio recreations had tonnes of interesting english-printed books and I couldn't help but pull some of them out to have a look :) There's no way you'd ever get to do that in an Australian museum!!
Ghibli Museum
Ghibli Museum
So we spent a couple of hours there, then wandered make to Mitaka Station and back to Tokyo.
Dropped Stu off and Shimbashi, then went back to the Pokemon Centre at Hamamatsucho. Nat drooled over heaps of things there, but in the end only bought one thing :)
Pokemon toilet paper (!?) at the Pokemon Store
Photo by Natto
Then trained it around to Shinjuku again. Andrew and I were both tired and grumpy from lack of food (by now it was 8pm and we hadn't eaten anything since lunch) so put Nat in charge of finding dinner (she being the fussiest eater of the group ;) ). She found an Italian place outside Yodobashi so that's where we went. It was really good! ;)
After dinner we felt much better so went through three of the multiple *buildings* of Yodobashi. I had to resist the very strong urge to buy more storage (a cute little bus-powered usb hard drive would be soooo cool! ;) ). Looked at all sorts of shiny things.
Yodobashi Camera building in Shinjuku
Finally wandered back here quite late.. Again..! Heh
Using your phone is almost a compulsory activity sitting on a train!
Photo by Natto
Friday nights mean taxis as far as the eye can see outside every station in Tokyo
Steps walked today: 16491
Photos taken by me: 143
Photos taken by Stu: 32
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