Porn-free in Tokyo

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From an email:

So Tokyo. Well, x'ina and I set off at 10 which is remarkably early for me. Little Green Car took us to Tsukuba Centre by a very roundabout way as x'ina was directing via a GPS that only stored and displayed waypoints. But we did get there so I was quite impressed. The trick with navigating is to always sound sure and she did. So that was good. We parked in some multi-storey and caught the Tsukuba Express.

I should mention that it was raining. Nice heavy rain. Ugh.

We got out at Asakusa and found ourselves without a clue as to where we were. We randomly went up and down streets if they looked interesting. Popped into McD to satisfy our addictions (coke for x'ina, tea for me) and explored a few shops that sold teapots. Eventually, and with very soggy jeans, we saw a five storeyed pagoda in the not-so-distance. We headed towards that and found the Buddhist temple that we were wanting to visit hence getting off at Asakusa. It was pretty grand and we took lots of photos of it which I can show you next week if you want. Outside the temple there was a street market type affair full of food and tacky souvenirs. We bought some freshly baked cakes. Piping hot and quite nice if a little bland in taste. We had lunch at a noodle place and then moved on.

We went to West Shinjuku (though it took us a while to figure out the tube system, losing a couple of dollars in the process by buying the wrong ticket). Once there we were disoriented yet again but soon found our bearings and a department store. x'ina was surprised at the many many huge levels of electronics. Once out of that place, we braved the rain to see the Tokyo Metropolitan Building or something. I think that was its name. It had two towers and looked rather imposing. The guidebook said that it was meant to be somewhat gothic but of course just ended up looking Japanese.

Then we walked to East Shinjuku and hit another department store. When we came out of there it was 2cp and pretty dark (mainly because the sun was setting but honestly it had been dark all day because of the rainclouds) and the neon was all lit up. We wandered the streets for a while searching for the most neon dense areas we could find. Finally we struck gold- nowhere could have been more garishly lit that this particular street. Happy, we stopped off for lattes at a cafe and then went back on the tube. Yet again purchasing a ticket and then not being able to work out which line we were meant to use and so having to buy yet another ticket (they seem to have separate systems so one ticket does not work on all), we made it to Akihabara. That is Electric Town and we wandered around to see the neon and odd electronic goods there.

Then we went back on the Tsukuba Express. I felt so sick from the journey. It was hot in the carriage and I was worried that I was on the verge of hurling. Not wanting to drive in that state, when we got into Tsukuba we went straight to a little Italian restaurant for dinner. Sitting down and sipping water helped as did the pasta. I couldn't eat much but it dispelled most of the sickness.

x'ina was not as good with the GPS this time and we spent some ten minutes lost in tiny backstreets that wouldn't go where we wanted. Nevermind though- we still made it alive. It is a hard way to navigate and I was happy with how she did. In fact, during the whole day she didn't babble much and she proved to be good company. I still would have preferred to be utterly alone with my thoughts but hey ho- she couldn't have had her first trip alone.

Sigh. I was tired and still a little queasy so I went straight to bed. Alas, feeling ill made it hard to get to sleep but once asleep, I slept well.

I dreamt about Nevare oddly enough. But actually he was Harry Potter. And Harry Potter's girlfriend was Mary-Jane Watson and she wondered over how he had lost all of his weight. Anyway, the last 100 pages of the final Harry Potter book were Harry's diary. The story finished and then we were treated to his perspective which explained his odd methods in the thrid-person section. The film came out at the same time and I saw the film first which was kind of a shame but I didn't want to miss the opportunity to be the first one to see it (it was a preview held at my library and my mum and I snuck in pretending to be reporters).