On Sunday we went out the Mitaka to the Studio Ghibli museum. Although I went last time I was in Tokyo it was still fun to go again. My favourite part is where they have walls covered with water colour sketches of the different films. After spending the morning at the museum we took the Studio Ghibli 'cat bus' back to Mitaka and found some plain wooded chopstick! Something that was difficult to find as most of the big shops only sold ornate chopsticks. We also found a jazz cafe on the second floor of a building. So we sat down to drink ice coffee eat piazza and listen to jazz recordings. We stayed there for an hour or so, it was such a nice place hang out it, and was the perfect haven form the hot weather outdoors.
When we got back to Tokyo we took the train to the Tokyo Skytree, the large TV tower built onto of a large shopping complex. As it was close to dinner time went to the food court and ate ramen, to was ok but it had some strange gluteus porig looking substance added to it which made it think and the texture was unpleasant to eat. The que to take the lift to the viewing platform, let along the even longer que to purchase the tickets deterred us from going up to the viewing platform. Instead we walked back towards the river and sat in a bar drinking Asahi super dry.
Monday was David's last day in Japan and he wanted to go to a big lego store, we thought the biggest one would be on Odaiba near the Legoland discovery centre. The trip out on the train over the rainbow bridge was fantastic, it almost felt like it was going to be a theme park ride. When. Got to Odaiba it looked as if the Lego store was closed for renovation so we decided to do to Lego Land instead. We were the oldest people that were not there with there children by 15 years or so. Still some of the centre was fun. There was a ride that I thought was going to be like a haunted railway, and it was similar but you had these lego guns that you used to shoot big lego monsters that were coming to get you and you collected points (as a side note I got more points than David which i think is impressive as i don't play video games). My favourite part was the lego models of some of the famous building in Tokyo. There was a litle model of the Nagasaki capsule tower and Yoyogi stadium. At the exit to lego land there was a lego shop although it was not very big, but was still got to look at some of the very impressive models they have, they have an architecture series where you can build Some of Frank Lloyd Wright's buildings and the Star wars collection with its big star destroyers and the like are always impressive.
After having lunch in Odaiba we were both tired and far too full. We got the train back across the bride spent some time looking for a particular graphic novel in bookshops and then gave up and went back to Asakusa. In Asakusa I found a second hand book store which we browsed around but then we raced back to the hostel as there was a big thunder storm in the way. Instead of staying at the hostel for an hour we quickly grabbed David's bags and walked quickly back to the train station. The thunder and lightning were quite spectacular and we were very fortunate that we got to the station before then rain started coming down.
It was lucky that we got to the train station so early as we hot on the wrong train! It was going to Naita NOT Narita airport. Luckily it was in the right direction it just meant that it took us longer then expected to get to the airport and we had to change trains and wait for fifteen minutes. When we got to the airport there was a big que for the Australian flight and it took us fifty minutes to cheek in David's luggage this left us only fifteen minuets until David had to go through the security gate. We had enough time to go to the observation deck and look at the wonderful un set that you could see through the break in the clouds. It was then time to say goodbye and take a train back to Tokyo. On the train back to Tokyo a funny thing happened here is an exerp from an email that zi wrote to David about it:
" I am sitting on the train back to Tokyo writing about the last few days in Tokyo and I feel a funny movement on my leg, I absentmindedly brush my leg with my foot and the feeling goes away. After thinking about it I am curious as to what would make my foot itch so I look down and there is a very large green flying bug thing on my shoes! (I assume that this was the thing on my leg making it itch.) with out thinking I kicked the bug off my shoes and it started flying around the train carriage. The funny thing was watching everyone elses reactions to this big bug. Some were warding it off with books and newspapers while the bunch of school girls repelled from it and squealed. The man sitting next to the school girls piked it up in his hand and let it out at the next stop. "
This concludes the adventures in Tokyo. I will try and write about Gifu prefecture soon. Although I wont have internet tomorrow night because of the village I am staying in.
A.B.
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