We checked out of our hotel and caught the train back to Shinjuku Station. Once there we enquired about the left luggage office. All Japanese stations seem to have left luggage lockers but most of these were too small for our huge suitcases. The lass in the Information Office suggested that the Department store, Odakyu, had larger lockers and gave us rough directions. Main Japanese railway stations can be like a labyrinth andpossibly Shinjuku is the most complex. It brings together JR lines, with the terminals for several private lines and the Metro. It aslo works on several levels, above and below grouns which are labyrinthine shopping malls, department stores, restaurants and bars. Somehow we found the lockers and managed to leave our cases.
Emerging from the station wasn't easy but we reached ground level and carefully remembered which exit we came out at.
We then walked to Shinjuku central park. On the way we passed through the skyscraper section, including the 50 storey Keio Plaza Hotel where Joan stayed on her first night in Japan in 1989.

At the park there was a flea market going on,and we also noticed homeless people camping there in makeshift tents. On the edge of the park was shinto shrine where a wedding was being held. Kevin shot a video.

As we still had several hours to pass, we headed to another, larger park, the other side of Shinjuku, Gyoen National Gardens. This was more like a London park and families came to sit there, play with their children and have picnics. We had a picnic too.

The gardens are divided into different sections, including a British park, French Formal Garden and traditional Japanese garden. The rose section in the french garden proved popular with cameras out by the dozen. In the Japanese garden was a girl in a kimono.

We stayed several hours, and then headed back to Shinjuku, where there in a complex pedestrian crossing that stops all the traffic and people can cross from side to side or even diagonally across a square. There is an election going on in Japan at the moment and there was the surreal scene of the candidate in white gloves and a sash barking into a microphone and waving madly to an oblivious crowd.

Then came panic. We made our way back to where we had left our cases but the maze of shops and levels was impossible to fathom. After a good while searching, we accidentally found the lockers. We thought the problem was over, but then we couldn't find our way through the building to the JR tracks. With help from an Info clerk we eventually found the station bit of the station! We were glad we built in extra time. Then it was an uneventful ride to the airport on the Narita Express to catch the plane.