Friday, 28th November

Charles: Today we decided to visit Akihabara and Asakusa. We took the Ginza line to Ueno and changed to the Hibaya line which took us to Akihabara then we had to walk to the electronics district which is called Electric Town. On the way we noticed a Muji shop in a mall so we stopped to have a look. There wasn't anybody else in the shop so we had a relaxed time looking at everything. I was particularly taken with their clocks, bags and jackets, Chrissy liked the wooden toys and gloves and Emi liked some snacks so much that she bought them.

Then we walked into Electric Town and browsed through some shops selling appliances and anime merchandise. There were many cool things like the Tokyo train sign watch and the USB humping dog. I spotted an amazing market of electronics parts and devices and spent several minutes wandering around before being retrieved by the girls. Then we went into a big discount and duty free shop called Don Quixote and had a great time looking at food, toys, costumes, clothes, clocks and many other strange things.

Chrissy: I got a phone dangly which has Hello Kitty in Lolita costume on it. It is the best.

Charles: Our next destination was Asakusa to see the famous Senso-ji temple. We got a bit lost in the station but a nice salaryman helped us find the right way. When we arrived as Asakusa our first priority was to find a nice place to eat. We ducked into a small alley and Emi pointed to a nondescript door and said that it was a restaurant. On closer inspection there was a menu outside and it was a Monja-yaki and Okonomi-yaki restaurant. In this kind of restaurant, every table has a hotplate and you cook the food yourself. Okonomi-yaki is a kind of thick pancake with cabbage and strips of meat which is finished with layers of sauce and seasoning. Monja-yaki starts out with a similar kind of batter but it doesn't form a pancake, instead you seperate a bit on the hotplate and let it cook for a second by itself and then scoop it onto your plate and into your mouth. It was delicious and a great experience.

When we left the restaurant we went for a walk up the tourist street towards the temple where we went in nice fabric shop, ate some dango and saw the world famous Doll & Chocolate Shop. The Senso-ji was a very impressive building and it was a mysterious experience to see everybody performing small ceromonies with special incense, special sticks, special water and many other special objects.

Chrissy: I felt a bit weird about gawking at and taking photos of someone else's religious place. At the place where people were burning incense, Emi said that her grandmother told her to put the smoke on your head, because it will make you smarter. So I got Chucky to do it.

Charles: Our final destination was the Japan Percussion Centre. We got to walk a few blocks through the temple gardens and past some other interesting parts of Asakusa to get to the shop. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite as good as we had hoped. The showrooms were small so they had good ranges of snare drums, triangles, tambourines and woodblocks but not much else.

Chrissy: I liked a Grover triangle that looked like the metal had been twisted. It sounded amazing.

Charles: Prices were not great either and the exchange rate meant that it was much more expensive than equivalent shops in Australia. So we left and got on the metro to return to the hotel in Akasaka. For dinner we had takeaway bento from Hokka Hokka Tei. This is another place we wouldn't know about without Emi. Emi had a combination, I had Katsu-bento and Chrissy had O-Yako-don. Now we're relaxing and watching TV, Chrissy and Emi are enjoying a countdown-esque show with j-pop artists.