I have a rather watery theory that they're pumping sleeping gas into our room as we're up late again. Cynics may say that watching the Masters until gone 2am might have something to do with it. I was wondering how Japan managed to be showing it some incalculable number of hours late but forgot about that when after just a few seconds Jeff Maggert thinned his bunker shot into the lip and threw it all away (I'm with you there, Jeff). Actually, I gave up [watching] when neither of the two unknowns made a decisive push for victory appearing to tie on the last. Today we're heading down to Ginza for a look see at the big shops. First, though, we asked if we could use the phone in reception to reserve the airport bus. Ten minutes and four members of staff later, another Japanese speciality, we're on.
Ginza is blessed with a large number of department stores, just the sort of place where you can mooch around the furniture and flashy TV sections. Erm, no. It seems that these city block sized shops (OK, not many are that big) are dedicated, utterly, to women's clothes. Yes, obviously, there's a passing reference to other things but, unless you're a woman looking for the usual clutch of department store fashion names, these are a real disappointment.
Enough of that, then, off to the Sony Building where they have four floors of multiple levels (arranged on a spiral staircase!) of Sony's gadgetry. These days they're a bit more generous in letting the rest of the world play with the same but it's still nice to play with it all under one roof. One nice touch is their [up to 60inch] Liquid Crytal TVs. Built similarly to Apple's (and everyone else's in Japan) widescreen 17 inch LCD panel -- have a look, it's very nice -- it has a large glass border to the TV, as though the flat glass of the monitor extends beyond the display area. It looks and feels good. We head off for something vaguely cultural but the Buddhist temple looks like a town hall and the detached palace garden closes at 5:30. Then the drizzle turns to rain. Time to go home.
A final Internet session before we succumbed to the inevitable. Tired (we had been up for nine hours) and unwilling to fight the language barrier we headed for McDonalds. As it happens the woman behind the till spoke better English than any of the waiting staff who've served us to date. The menu was in Japanese and pointing to something not involving two burgers or cheese I got a teriyaki burger.
We packed, discovered the shears are 220-240v -- long hair for me -- and went to bed early (for us in Tokyo) but to no avail. We had to have a can't sleep pillow fight then played bao until Helen felt unwell.
Dai Ichi Inn Hotel, Ikebukuro, Tokyo N35.73201 E139.71260 Elev. 72m
Copyright 2003 Ian Fitchet. All rights reserved.