Day 14: Tokyo

H's directions to his apartment are just as K would write them, with just the right details, leaving nothing to chance. He's working odd hours this weekend (graveyard to late morning shift and then again late afternoon), we drop by today to pick up his key for tomorrow. It was past 11am, but I think we woke him up =/ Turns out he had a late late night but didn't have to do graveyard.

Wow, clean and bare. Absolutely no clutter at all! It's inspiring, especially for a pack rat like me. The apartment is huge (compared to what we expected for Tokyo apartments) and has one room that's a traditional style tatami mat room with a sliding door. After chatting for a while, we're on our way with a key.


Ginza. I love pedestrian-only streets, which Ginza-dori is on the weekends ^o^

We attend to food first, and for doing so, we pick one of the department stores, Matsuya. In Japan, most of the department store basements are massive food halls of prepared foods. Any food-loving person *needs* to visit these. Breads, salads, yakitori, bentos, sushi, fried foods, random dishes... almost everything you might want to eat. It's hard to picture just how big these are -- you have to go there. (How did I not end up with a picture of one? Seems the food overwhelmed me =/) We discovered that both the department store and location affect the price -- the items at the Ginza Matsuya cost at least 25% more than those same items at the other Matsuya we've visited (I think at Asakusa). Bento for K, and sushi for me ^o^


SL suggested I drop by the Itoya store, so we did. I underestimated the seven floors of stationary goodness! Poor K. I'm a browser, but I did walk away with a few small items. Since next year is cow year, there were tons of cow stamps and other cow goodies! If you're lucky enough that one of your favorite animals is also a zodiac sign, come the autumn right before that sign's year =)


We were looking for tofu bread in the Kimuraya bakery, but either the sales clerk didn't understand me or my info was wrong. No tofu bread. We did leave with some yummy green tea bread though ^o^


Sony showroom... dancing mp3 player! Cute for a while, but totally impractical, I think.


Tokyo International Forum. The building is just stunning on the inside!

Shinjuku. Streets and streets of lights and people. Some buildings with floors and floors of clubs. Pachinko parlors all around. Unfortunately, my quick visit to a pachinko parlor was made even quicker by the heavy smoke =/



The govt offices buildings are a few blocks walk from the center of Shinjuku. Why would we want to visit govt offices? Free views from up high ^o^ Only one of the towers (north) is open at night though.

Kushiyaki. No pictures or sample food, but the menu's got romaji, not that it helps... I know hardly any food words! We randomly picked a few things off the menu hehe. Out of the six items we picked, K could eat three. The chicken skin, gizzards, and chicken wing just didn't cut it for him. He really liked the meatballs, so we ordered two more of those and also, another gizzards for me ^-^


Almost midnight, back to hotel. Sleep.