The answer to Akihabara is not to go in expecting to find one specific thing. Do that and you'll probably end up disappointed, like me. Instead of trying to find one specific model of DVD player or camera, I should have taken a more open-minded approach. That way I may have come away with something, and I probably would have spent more time being impressed with some of the other groovy stuff on display. Oh well.
Even so, we still walked around Electric Avenue (strange, I wasn't aware that the Japanese were big Eddie Grant fans before this trip), for a good while and it was late afternoon by the time I collected what purchases I had made (a natty set of headphones and a Sony PocketStation) and my gorgeous darling from the local MickeyD's where she was patiently awaiting the abatement of my techolust, and we headed back to Ikebukuro.
Us old folk need an afternoon nap, so we had us a couple of hours of downtime, during which I got very tearful at the thought of this being our last full day on hols and in Japan. Still, we still had a few more hours in Tokyo, so we headed for the biggest department store in Japan - Tobu (I hope the owner's half-brother forgives us...) where we finally bought a wedding present for our good friends Rich & Jude - something we'd been trying to do for the last two weeks. When I say that Tobu is large, I mean really large. It makes Harrods look like a corner shop by comparison.
After spending lots more money on the Visa card we went back to Yoronotaki again. I didn't mention it in yesterday's diary but it's a bar/restaurant (izakaya) which is part of a nationwide chain. It could nearly be nationwide by itself it's so big, spread out as it is over four floors.
It reminds me a lot of the beer kellers I go to on my trips to Köln. It's big and noisy and full of shouting waiters and waitresses. In fact, Fiona and I are sure that the prime requirement for working there, above literacy or numeracy, has to be the ability to scream at the top of your lungs for an entire shift.
Anyway, the food is great, the beer's good, there are lots of novel (to us) things to try and the bill at the end is fantastic. On both nights we went we (well, I) ate and ate and ate, and I drank enough for two, and the total cost was still only 5,165¥ (that's less than thirty quid). I just wish we had one in Bath!
We had to get back to the hotel fairly early because we still had to work out how to cram everything into our bags and we were going to have to get up at 6:30 the next morning. Oh bugger.
Even so, we still walked around Electric Avenue (strange, I wasn't aware that the Japanese were big Eddie Grant fans before this trip), for a good while and it was late afternoon by the time I collected what purchases I had made (a natty set of headphones and a Sony PocketStation) and my gorgeous darling from the local MickeyD's where she was patiently awaiting the abatement of my techolust, and we headed back to Ikebukuro.
Us old folk need an afternoon nap, so we had us a couple of hours of downtime, during which I got very tearful at the thought of this being our last full day on hols and in Japan. Still, we still had a few more hours in Tokyo, so we headed for the biggest department store in Japan - Tobu (I hope the owner's half-brother forgives us...) where we finally bought a wedding present for our good friends Rich & Jude - something we'd been trying to do for the last two weeks. When I say that Tobu is large, I mean really large. It makes Harrods look like a corner shop by comparison.
After spending lots more money on the Visa card we went back to Yoronotaki again. I didn't mention it in yesterday's diary but it's a bar/restaurant (izakaya) which is part of a nationwide chain. It could nearly be nationwide by itself it's so big, spread out as it is over four floors.
It reminds me a lot of the beer kellers I go to on my trips to Köln. It's big and noisy and full of shouting waiters and waitresses. In fact, Fiona and I are sure that the prime requirement for working there, above literacy or numeracy, has to be the ability to scream at the top of your lungs for an entire shift.
Anyway, the food is great, the beer's good, there are lots of novel (to us) things to try and the bill at the end is fantastic. On both nights we went we (well, I) ate and ate and ate, and I drank enough for two, and the total cost was still only 5,165¥ (that's less than thirty quid). I just wish we had one in Bath!
We had to get back to the hotel fairly early because we still had to work out how to cram everything into our bags and we were going to have to get up at 6:30 the next morning. Oh bugger.
Onto: 991016 - Flight home
13:25 |
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