Sadly the weather report for today is glum – but it’s our last day in Tokyo so we will make the most of it regardless.
After breakfast we wander East, walking through the district and confirming our suspicions that this is quite an “interesting“ area with a lot of Excitement Rooms and many other pleasures to be purchased by the hour.
Our first planned visit is the Imperial Palace, not that we have an invitation, like all other peasants all we can do is wander past. If it wasn’t a Monday we might have taken a wander around the imperial gardens but it is so we can’t. Onwards we continue to wander through affluent “Embassy” areas until we reach Akihabara.
This district should be my nirvana – it is the electronics and gizmo central of the entire world – but it’s a little bit too geeky for me these days. Having said that the world´s largest electronics store is here so OBVS we have to go and check it out even if only optically. It’s a scary place on eight floors with so many staff we’ve never seen the like even in Bangkok, which comes a close second. The remaining area is dedicated to Anime type thingies we don’t even understand.
Next we hit Ueno Park which is the cultural centre of Tokyo. Here can be found a plethora of museums, an open air theatre, the Centre of Performing Arts and various other spaces. We walk though the CPA which is holding a “ballet for everyone” event teaming with tiny little girls in tutus – scarily reminiscent of the old job when we occasionally went into the office on a Saturday!
We find the toilet museum accidentally, move on quickly to an interesting shrine with the most spectacular azalea display and continue our walk towards Yanaka Ginza. En route we stop to purchase sushi and enjoy our lunch in a gorgeous little park with koi kites flying to celebrate the current season.
The destination of Yanaka Ginza turns out to be a little underwhelming, it’s extremely touristy and full of tat shops, but one can understand the attraction – maybe? We rapidly change course and commence our return via some cute neighbourhoods.
Let’s talk a little about cars – we have seen more G-Wagons than Stuttgart, more Ferraris than Milan and several Maybach, which previously we’ve never seen anywhere. Add to that an eclectic collection of oldies, it’s been fascinating to observe. Sadly it’s not always been possible to photograph these, but I did manage a few.
Even this fabulous old GTE has a Murciélago photobomb? I’m sure Simon or Kathy will confirm.
OK done with cars – now it’s the weather – as we walk home the drops commence. A quick look at Accuweather isn’t comforting, we look at the metro options, which are quite easy, but choose to ignore these, so we pop into 7-11 and buy a £3.50 ´brolly, which does the trick – as we continue to walk home the rain stops and we never actually open it!
Having been quite impressed with the hotel’s restaurant we decide, especially as the rain has finally arrived in force, to stay home. Tonight we explore the Italian option with arancini, gnocchi, Bolognese and urchin pasta, the latter a new experience.
