I used the alarm this morning – I didn’t want to sleep in as Kauro had a big day planned for us. So after breakfast I tidied the room a bit and went downstairs to wait for her. She turned up with a big smile on her face – she had bumped in to a friend in the lobby of the hotel who had stayed there one night on their way through to somewhere – they were just checking out to leave. She hadn’t seen her in 2 years. Small world…
It was a perfect day – barely a cloud in the sky, low 20’s… couldn’t have asked for more. The first train we caught took us to Sensouji Temple in Asakusa. There was a walkway with lots of stalls on the side. There were also fortune “tickets”. I was shown how to pick my fortune, which I think had to be the worst one you could get. Words like “you will not be successful”, “a sick friend will not recover”…..I don’t really want to think of the others! I took a photo of it and tied it to the thing they get tied on (???) which is supposed to make the bad luck go away. Brett and I only hope!!!!
In the Temple at the far end I was shown how to pray in this place. The ritual was similar but had subtle differences. After this we walked a bit more and had some food from one of the food stalls. It was very different food to what you eat in hotels / restaurants, but as with all food over here, very enjoyable. After some more walking, we got to the train station for our next agenda item.
Because November is a very religious month, we went to see the Tori no Ich fair in Asakusa. Unfortunately it did not start until Monday. Regardless, we went to see what it would look like, but they were still setting up. This was good because we didn’t have the crowds, and still got to see what it would look like. I saw them putting up a Japanese lantern. I recalled having one back in my youth, which Dad picked up on one of his trips. I didn’t realise that even the full sized ones collapsed the same way! So this one was fully collapsed, with a diameter of about 2.5 metres! They were stringing it up with rope.
Kaoru wanted to show me “Kiddy Land” in Omotesandou – basically a gigantic toy store where Hello Kitty, Peanuts, and everything else you can imagine can be found. So another train and more walking took us there. This was basically a 3 story “Toys R Us”. So we looked around there for a bit. But by now I was pretty worn out (from the whole week) so wanted to sit down and have a drink. We found a bar and ordered some food and a bourbon, and just relaxed for a while. Then it was back on our feet to go to a large shopping centre, which set up a Christmas theme every year. Because this is the 110th(?) anniversary of Disney, this was the selected theme. So there was a large crystal set up in the middle of the shopping centre, which we got a couple of photos of.
The plan Brett and I had made is that he would go to the Ginza stadium in the morning and check they were using Datascore, and I would pop in in the afternoon to ensure they weren’t having any problems. So we started walking to the train station to go there. On the way I gave Mikiko a call to touch base and see what I should expect. They had just left the stadium, and nobody was using the system because they hadn’t been told to. It was like India all over again (except this time Brett was facing the frustration – not me!). So basically it wasn’t worth us going there. Instead we decided to go back to Shinigawa, where I could touch base with Brett, and then we could go for dinner in that area. So it was back to the train station…
Back in Shinigawa we went to Brett’s room and I got a status update. We then decided to join him and Mikiko at dinner with the blind soccer federation guys. Brett had supplied uniforms for them a while ago, so they wanted to see him and thank him. So we thought it would be a fun night out at a Korean BBQ. I went back to my room to get changed, and we went downstairs.
At the train station we met up with the guys. There was one blind person (opening line to Brett – “Long time, no see”), his “guide”(?? For want of a better term) and one other guy. They spoke very broken English, but “Hello” and names were exchanged, and then we walked to the restaurant. This was at a very hidden area down a side street, and you would never find it if you didn’t know it existed.
At the hotel we were joined by a couple more people. The beers were flowing and it turned in to an extremely loud evening. Brett and I spoke afterwards and thought it was the best night out we had had the entire trip. As enjoyable as the expensive restaurants were, there was always a serious “shop” side to dinner. There was none of this tonight – it was just enjoyable. It was difficult communicating at times, but nobody took anything seriously. And with Mikiko on one table and Kaoru on the other to translate anything that wasn’t easily understood, it made things much easier.
After dinner we had a last drink upstairs at the hotel for a last birds eye view of Tokyo. It was about 10.30pm, and we were told they were closing. They let us in for one last drink though. Unfortunately they don’t make as good a Mojito as I had hoped. It was then time to call it a night.