Tokyo - Tuesday 5th May 2009

It peeeeeeed it down today :(
Good thing I remembered my brolly otherwise I would have gotten completely soaked. The little canvas shoes I was wearing are ruined, but the rest of me is ok! However, even if I hadn't remembered my own brolly, I would have been able to pick one up outside very cheaply as they were being sold everywhere! The fashion for brollies over here seems to be for the long ones with the crooked handles. They have so many clear plastic ones, and red plastic ones, and yellow plastic ones.....etc. The clear plastic ones seemed to be the most popular though - even the guys were carrying them!

Plan for today was to do a bit of shopping and also go to the Tokyo Metropolitan Towers. It's a govermnent building, which is about 50 floors or something like that, but they have lookout points on the 44th floor of each tower (north and south) which is really cool. Tokyo is a sprawling metropolis, but there are some really lovely green bits. You could see beautiful Meiji Jingu from one of the towers, and it looked so gorgeous nestled among all the buildings.
Of course, I chose to go on a rainy grey day and so I couldn't see Mount Fuji from up there as it was covered in grey! Damn it!! Another beautiful tourist attraction that I've missed seeing!! Bloody weather!
The Towers weren't too packed with people, though there were a fair few people around.

I walked to Shinjuku station afterwards and that was really packed! Huge station, but loads of people milling about, probably to do with the big department store and other shops attached to the station!
I did have a look around (why not, it was raining outside?) and then found a Hello Kitty department. I spent ages in there, looking at the amount of stuff with H. Kitty on!! I mean, I know she's on a lot of stuff, but she's on a lot of stuff! They also had a locked case with expensive HK items - a camera with HK on the front, and even a little netbook type thing!! Crumbs.
Bought a few choice items, definitely a good thing I'm on a budget. I did wonder if they took credit cards there, but probably a good thing they didn't otherwise I think I might have gone a little over the top!

Went to Harajuku afterwards, and bought some more socks!! Ahhh, I love socks.

Weather forecast for tomorrow isn't too good (they have little tv screens on the trains that show adverts and the weather which is really cool) so I think I might just stay in Kamata and have a walk around there. I haven't explored my own little area properly since I've been here, so I probably should do that. I also need to shop for pressies for people and there's a big department store attached to the station, so I'm hoping they take credit cards and I can do all my pressie shopping in one place!

Tokyo - Wednesday 6th May 2009

Had a really nice last day in Kamata today, even though I got soaked again as it was all rain, rain, rain.
One of the good things about being in a rainy city though (and perhaps London can think about this?) is that they have little brolly bags in all the shops! Long clear plastic bags to put your wet brolly's in - genius! No drippy brolly's over floors and goods - great idea!

Something that has been making me laugh today - people riding bikes and carrying umbrella's! It looks ever so funny that of course I had to take pictures. The best one was a girl and a boy on a bike, and she was holding the brolly inbetween them and sitting at the back, but not really covering either of them so they were still getting wet!! Daftness or what?

The department store did luckily take MasterCard so I was able to do all my present shopping today, yay! I also bought myself a really gorgeous parasol, as there were some really lovely ones that weren't too expensive either. I was debating on whether to get one or not as I've been worrying about the weight of my suitcase! It shouldn't be an issue really, seeing as my case has been overweight for the whole time I've been away, so I hope it'll be fine. I'll just have to wait and see I guess!
One of the funniest things about buying the parasol was the amount of effort the sales girls put into the packaging!! They wrapped the parasol in a peice of paper, and then put it in a paper bag. Of course, as it was raining outside, the paper bag was going to get soaked. They then put the paper bag into a plastic bag but the handles of the bag went through a small opening and the large opening was at the bottom. They realised that the handle of the parasol poked out of the corner of the bag, so it wouldn't quite fit. They then cut a hole in the corner of the plastic bag so the parasol handle could poke through. Then they taped up the bottom of the plastic bag, and the middle of the small opening by the handles, and then I got to leave the store!! I almost didn't want to unwrap the parasol because of the amount of effort they put into the wrapping!! It was actually quite an art to watch :D

Had a really nice walk around Kamata, and in the local shopping centre that was full of 100 Yen shops had some guys dressed up in animal costumes! They were pretty cute looking, giving the kids hugs and high fives!

Not looking forward to getting up at about 4am tomorrow morning, so better get myself an early night! I did half think about not going to sleep and then I could just pass out on the plane, but I don't think I could stand to watch Japanese telly for the whole evening and I don't really have anything else to do with myself! Packing my case will only take me so long after all, and I haven't any money to go out anywhere (not that I would know where to go, and haven't anyone to go with!) so I guess I should just get as much shut eye as I can. Plane seats aren't that comfy either and I may end up sitting next to some big biffer who'll take up more space than they should!!
However, I didmanage to catch the cutest panda cartoon!! A poppa panda, his panda son, and then this red head girl all lived in the same house. They made friends with a baby tiger, and then had a fab adventure. It really was a cute cartoon, but I have no idea what it's called as it was all in Japanese. Something else to Google!