Shop till you drop

Saturday 24th April
We started today by booking tomorrow's 'Narita Express' tickets to get to the hotel next to the airport. From there, we went to Akihabara. We had decided that if we were going to do some shopping, it would have to be somewhere less known than Shibuya and Shinjuku. I did some research on the Internet and found that there is a chain of discount stores called 'Don Quijote' (yes, that's how it's spelt). The stores are commonly know as 'Donki' and I found that there is one at Akihabara. Our main aim was to find a small bag which we could put our gifts and souvenirs into to bring home, as our baggage is now over the 5kg each limit for carry-on baggage. We were able find a decent bag at a Duty Free shop that we passed on the way to Donki. The shop also sold some very nice souvenirs, so we had a good time selecting some things for ourselves, family and friends. When we'd finished, we were given a free voucher for 1000 yen to spend, so we were able to go back for another round! We had fun browsing at Donki which is like our discount stores (Cheap as Chips, Neds, Cunninghams, etc.) but BIGGER (of course) and we picked up a couple of novelty items. We then got back onto the train and stopped off at Tokyo Station to look for a toy Shinkansen for my grandson Jake. I really didn't expect this to be a problem at the Tokyo Railway Station, but there seems to be a distinct lack of toy Shinkansens. Several places sold plastic Shinkansen tape measures, but I didn't think these would be of much interest to Jake (not for a few years anyway). I finally found one at a kiosk which sold mainly snacks, drinks and newspapers. Then it was back on the train again to the Shimbashi Station. From here we changed to the new Yurikamome Line which runs a train service to an island in Tokyo Port. The journey over was a sightseeing experience in itself, with many futuristic looking buildings and interesting things to gaze upon. The railway station was anther example of the Japanese art of making the most of available space. It sits above the road in a suspended box with escalators to take passengers to the terminal. The island is the location of The Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation. We spent some time browsing there, but our legs were quite worn out so we probably didn't make the most of it. Maybe one day they'll develop technology to enable middle-aged tourists to walk around sightseeing all day without wearing out. John did manage to make a couple of new friends, though.
We made our way back to Ikebukuro and after a rest, decided to try a different direction for dinner. Just around the corner from the hotel we struck it lucky once again (yes, it was good and yes, it was cheap).
We had a bit of a sort out of our new purchases and discovered that they fill more than our new bag! Hopefully we'll be able to squish everything in somewhere.



Tonight is our last night at Ikebukuro. We then have one night at Narita and it's up, up and away.