Day 30 Japan
I've been in Japan for a month now which means I've been on the trip for 9 weeks already! Hard to believe.
As much as I love Japan I'm starting to long to get away from Asia and see something different. I'm going to enjoy seeing Russia I think particularly once I get to the western side of it.
On that note I think I just needed a bit of rest today. I got started really late and just enjoyed lazing about the hotel room. In fact I didn't even leave the room until just before 2pm. Part of that was writing blog posts this morning (got to stay up to date!) but part was definitely just wanting to chill out for a bit.
So I slept in a little, wrote my blog posts and booked a flight to Sakaiminato to ... wait a minute. Turns out my god damn credit card is blocked! Remember when I got the SIM card in Nagoya? Looks like the place put through a 1 Yen transaction as part of setting up the card and that triggered the bloody fraud detection stuff at Westpac which means my card was blocked. Now I haven't used that card in about 10 days until I tried to buy a new Kindle book last night and it didn't work. I assumed that was a result of Tokyo's shitty 4g network which seems to crash speed wise after about 8pm. However trying to book a flight this morning the card was rejected by the airline. Very annoying.
And Westpac doesn't have an online contact service for their customers (no webchat, email or messaging through the app) so I had to figure out how to make an overseas call from my hotel room. I shudder to think how much that's going to cost me.
I appreciate Westpac trying to protect my money but it would be SUPER if they would email me or send me a message via their internet banking app to let me know they've blocked my card instead of waiting til I actually want to use it and it gets rejected. I told them I was overseas and I gave them 2 different email addresses to contact me in case something went wrong. NOT happy. According to the dude on the phone Facebook is the only way to get in contact with them without a phone call or a face to face visit. I guess I'm old ... this didn't even occur to me and it certainly wasn't mentioned on their website.
Anyway ... I finally booked the flight.
Today's agenda was pretty light on. I didn't really have much I wanted to do. I think I had too much time in Tokyo for my interests.
On the tour in Mongolia one of the girls (Katie) had lived in Japan for a while and recommended a place that might be entertaining for a while. It's a small shopping centre called Nakano Broadway and it's basically a collectable toy arcade. Kind of like Ahikibara but on a much much smaller scale and not as fancy. Almost a budget version I would say. So I got on the train and headed out there and poked around the area for an hour or two. It's a pretty funny little place. There's one of those Japanese covered shopping arcades which was actually pretty nice leading from the train station to Broadway. HEAPS of people there. Usual sort of stuff ... Shoe shops, food shops, phone stores etc...
There's a small bunch of laneways surrounding Broadway as well which had a heap of bars, restaurants and a couple of maid cafes in there as well. A pretty interesting little area all up and a fun way to spend a couple of hours.
Next stop was to head over to Harajuku to wander around down there. Supposed to be a very trendy and popular area with the young folks. And Jesus Christ yes it was. This place was like my nightmares coming to reality. The Main Street had so many teenagers and so many shops crammed so tightly together it was difficult to move. It's like the worst shopping mall in history. I got out of there as quickly as I could.
Once I got to the end of the main bit I crossed the road and walked into the back streets a bit and this was much more my pace. Seemed to be a lot of smaller stores and coffee shops in this area and the people were closer to my age group. This is an area I could imagine myself hanging around in a bit. Not too busy, some good bars, good cafes and interesting people. Some of the fashions on display were fairly amusing but that just adds character to a joint.
I was sick of exploring neighbourhoods by that point and just wanted a beer. So I headed back over to Shibuya for a few beers. I crossed the road at the world's busiest intersection (expected it to be bigger) then stumbled across the Tokyo Mikkeller bar and had a drink. Left there after 1 because a bunch of Americans turned up and were being very American.
Down the road I stopped at a place called Goodbeer Faucets which was OK. It had about 30 taps with Japanese, American and European beers. I had a few Japanese beers (a nice gose and smoked stout) during happy hour then took off to find some food.
Stopped at a nice little stand up sushi bar (another recommendation by Katie) on the way back to the train station and smashed out a bunch of sushi. I kind of stuff up the etiquette a little bit at the start but I got there in the end and after a few laughs with the chef I was well fed and lighter in the wallet.
Went back through the busy intersection (which was much busier now) and am now back in the hotel room about to read a bit before bed.
So all in all a fairly relaxing day but I think I needed it. I'm off to the SUMO tournament tomorrow which should be fascinating!
No comments:
Post a Comment