Day 4: Toyko

Yesterday we took the train to Shinjuku to have a look about the place and went to a fancy department store where there were many beautiful things such as these toasters:


Shara & Webber bought some cool stuff including a new alarm clock, but when we took it to the counter they couldn't find a new clock and seemed embarrassed they had to give us floor stock. Then the cashier brought in an extra person to help her find a spare box, and when they couldn't be found a 3rd person helped wrap it beautifully in foam.
I bought the cup man featured in a previous post, I did explain him in my email post but apparently that doesn't go through. When I next go downstairs to the free wireless hotspot I will email a better picture to myself and then download it in the hotel room then upload it to the blog SEE THE WORK THAT GOES INTO WRITING THIS BLOG JUST FOR YOU?
I gave the cashier a ¥10,000 note and she had to check it with another employee, count the change with him and then count it again with me.

We walked for a bit to look for Kinokuniya, a 7 floor bookstore, but while I was taking the above photo for a cat cafe Webber was trying to figure out where we needed to go. A middle aged man asked us in English if we needed assistance, then told us where to go. I felt bad that I had left the little gifts of chocolates in the hotel room.

In Kinokuniya we were looking for the Maru book, but discovered on the magazine floor ther were ONE MILLION MAGAZINES ABOUT DOGS & CATS. I bought a magazine called CreatCat which cost ¥880 and is worth every single yen (this was also the cheapest one), and Shara & Webber bought one called Corgi Style (there were at least 3 just about corgis).
Luckily my cat magazine had a feature on Maru, along with other famous television/internet cats, so we were able to muddle together with the sales staff what book we wanted. The book was only ¥1600 which was way cheaper than Amazon, so if you ever need books about Japanese cats I suggest you come straight to the source.

At some point I took this photo of a little fruit market stall, just look at the price of those watermelons! About $30! And the apples are massive, if you can compare the oranges and grapefruits on the left.

And then we had planned to walk to Harajuku before catching the train back, but the maps on the street in Tokyo are a bit crazy because they are oriented to the street which means they are not always with north at the top. So when we knew we had to travel south, we started off and started walking only to discover after a couple of kilometres we had just been walking back north towards Ikebukuro. We were too tired and just went back to the hotel.

In the evening we went back to Tokyu Hands department store to buy all the presents and fun things we saw when we went earlier to go to Nekobukuro. We spent ¥11,000 so we could get the tax back, but in the end it was only ¥600 back oh well.

One of the really great things about Tokyo is that there are heaps of super cute lady european bikes everywhere with baskets, nobody locks their bikes because nobody would steal it because that would just be terribly rude.