Day 12 - Tokyo - Sumimasen, Darling

W: Not a great night's sleep because noisy Italian backpackers spent the night running around the hallways at the hotel. Tony was awake quite a bit but I didn't sleep too badly.

Lotteria for breakfast. We seem to have become regulars - this is not something to be proud of! Tried to get free coffee refills which turned out be tricky due to communication difficulties, but we succeeded in the end.

We took the subway to Aoyama Cemetery to look for Hachiko's grave - he's buried there alongside his master - but it wasn't signposted in the vast cemetary. It was like one of those fruitless tasks on The Amazing Race and we gave up and just wandered around. The cemetery was lovely and we were the only people there. (We later found a picture of Hachiko's grave.)

We headed towards Harajuku and passed a vegetarian Indian restaurant which we remembered from the guidebook. The sign out front advertised a set lunch for Y800 so we decided to come back later - in retrospect this was not a good decision.

Via another Starbucks we headed down tree lined Omotesando to Kiddyland where we picked up some Studio Ghibli toys. Then to Yoyogi Park which turned out to be all but devoid of the crazy cosplay kids and street action we were expecting.

We wondered if we were a bit early. The few crazy/goth kids who were there were desperate to have their photos taken.

We headed back to Omotesando for a late morning treat at Choco Cro then passed a cutesy bakery which made ice cream cakes in the shape of bear faces.

The shop girls inside were wearing bear ears and they were only too happy to have their photos taken too.

If Yoyogi Park was quiet, Takeshita-dori was rocking. Hundreds of kids out strolling and shopping, many in cosplay outfits. It was very different to our first visit a few days ago - early morning on a weekday - when there was almost nobody around.

Wandered around the back streets checking out lots of cool shops, and stumbled upon a Tin Tin shop.

T: Finally to Crayon House which is an amazing children's book shop - bought a couple of books and cards.

There is a vegetarian buffet restaurant in the basement but it was really busy, plus more expensive on Sundays, so we thought we'd head back to the Indian place in Aoyama. On the way there we went to a tiny cupboard-sized shop selling fantastic books and art cards and bought some more Raymond Savignac cards.

Found the Indian restaurant and took our seats, but it was almost deserted (at 1.30pm!) and the menus only listed quite expensive a la carte meals.

We questioned the waitress in our best Japanese about the advertised lunch special to be told that it wasn't available on Sundays. Well, in that case they shouldn't be advertising it!

We said our sumimasen to the waitress - who could have cared less - and left, to the poisonous glare of a formidable lady I took to be the proprietor.

It seems very strange to be speaking Japanese to Indian people.

We decided to take the subway on to Ginza and find some lunch there. We picked up some onigiri in the basement food hall of Mitsukoshi department store then headed towards the overhead railway tracks where I figured we'd find some cheaper lunch options than around glitzy Ginza.

W: Had lunch at a Japanese curry house which was very nice, then headed to the Disney office to buy our Disneyland tickets for tomorrow.

Visited Printemps, the Ginza branch of the French department store which has a great line in cute cakes with faces, but not a lot more. We were quite bored by Ginza, it was all high end fashion and expensive labels, and not a lot of fun so we hopped on the subway and headed to Shinjuku.

Shinjuku on Sunday evening was mayhem, worse even than Shibuya. The main street is closed to traffic but it was a sea of people. I went in search of the Shinjuku branch of Recofan only to find it closed for renovations, so hit the Y100 shops instead. Tony went to Muji but wasn't very impressed.

Came back to Shibuya for dinner at our noodle shop and back to the hotel.

We're half packed for our departure on Wednesday and are a bit worried that everything might not fit, but we think it will be ok.

Tony is having a bath and I'm having a snooze....

Next > Day 13 - Tokyo - Funky and lovely Monday