Wednesday 10th August - Arrive in Tokyo.

Thursday 11th August - the Sony Building, Toyota Megaweb and a ferris wheel. Well obviously our first stop in Tokyo was going to be at something techy, so we went to the Sony Building. They allegedly showcase upcoming items here, but the only thing they seem to be promoting at the moment are 3D TVs. Once you've seen one TV, you've seen them all. After that it quickly becomes a normal stores selling Sony goods. At the top you can purchase goods for overseas, so with the correct instruction manuals and plug sockets. A quick check on Amazon revealed that the goods were cheaper back home though.

The Toyota Megaweb seemed to be the car version of the Sony Building. But in turned out just to be a huge forecourt. There was the opportunity to test drive a car, but only if you had a Japanese or international driving license, which we didn't. You could test drive one of their futuristic personal transport vehicles, like the one Richard Hammond drove on Top Gear, but only if you spoke Japanese as all the interactions were in Japanese. So basically there wasn't a lot to do for us! 

The ferris wheel was going to save the day, but its located in a harbour so on one side you have views of a port, and the view across the river to the centre of Japan on the other side is obscured by office blocks.

In the night we were awoken by our bed shaking - our first earthquake experience! The bed shook a little for about a minute or so but we're guessing it was a non-event by Japanese standards as no alarms went off and no-one even mentioned it at breakfast the next morning.

Friday 12th August - Akhibara. We had to change hostels today as our first hostel was booked up for the rest of our time in Tokyo. 

Our new hostel is just down the road from Akhibara - a hub of gaming and manga shops. We went there expecting some flashy madness, but it's just a shopping area like any other. Okay, so the contents were a bit unusual, but other than we just traipsed around floor after floor of stuff. There were shops selling manga character models, shops selling PC parts, shops specialising in old Nintendo games, and shops for over eighteens only which seemed to be selling fancy dress. As we've said before, the line between decency and porn is very fine in Japan! 

Saturday 13th August - sword museum. We had another tremor this morning, but not as strong or as long as before, Chris didn't even notice it happening whilst he was in the shower.

Tucked away in the suburbs is the sword museum. It is very small and just has several swords on display. We couldn't tell you anything more as everything was in Japanese! We're assuming the swords dated from different eras, demonstrated different sword styles or were made by master craftsmen. They did look very nice though.

Sunday 14th August - Imperial gardens and Shibuya. We tried to do the gardens at any rate. It was so hot today though that even just walking around the grounds to get to the gardens took it out of us. We couldn't face traipsing around the gardens themselves in this heat. So we gave up and headed to Shibuya where, apparently, on Sunday afternoons all the cosplay kids come out. Cosplay is just dressing up as, and sometimes pretending to be, your favourite animas cartoon character or video game character. Unfortunately it seemed it was too hot even for them to come out, so we didn't see anyone dressed up,

Monday 15th August - Shibuya. This is just a shopping district really, but it is the home to the famous crossing that is always shown on TV. Although we weren't there first thing in the morning, when all the business people are crossing, it did still get quite busy. It is just a crossing though. 

Tuesday 16 August - Nothing. The heat is really getting to us now so we just spent the day mooching about town and wandering round the shops. 

Wednesday 17th August - Tokyo Swallows vs Yokohama Bay Stars. We went to our second baseball game today. It was a much more exciting match than before! The away team made an impressive start but the Swallows managed to claw things back to a draw and the match pretty much stayed like that till the bitter end when the Bay Stars eventually took the lead. The match was punctuated by just as much oddity as the Hiroshima game. This time, when the Swallows got a home run everyone waved tiny umbrellas around - how odd!