We didn’t’ have too many plans for the day today other than a dinner booking for the kids to take Caroline and I out for dinner for her birthday. That left us with a pretty open schedule for the day that we decided to start filling with a walk to Akihabara for breakfast deliciousness from a bakery.
Prior to making it there Mike was kind enough to call to
wish Caroline a happy birthday from the UK and mentioned the chocolate bread he’d
loved when he’d visited Japan. I’m surprised that we hadn’t found it during our
previous trips, but when the bakery we went to had it, it became a must try item.
And I fully endorse its deliciousness.
Having indulged in that and a few other choice pastries, we had a quick walk through Yodabashi Camera, just to remind ourselves of how extensive and crazy the offerings there are. I managed to walk out without indulging in any additions to the model train collection, especially given it was our first full day in the country and we’d have to carry anything we bought with us for the next 3 weeks!
With Thomas, Emily and the Rowlands all due to arrive at
different times on the 6th we decided to seize the opportunity to
check out some of Tokyo’s ski shops for things that we might need up the
mountain. Things we might have perhaps grown out of, or worn out or in the case
of helmets, might be life expired, or worse, already tested in enough of a
crash (https://davesdrift.blogspot.com/2019/01/japan-2019-day-5.html)
to make one wonder about its future head-saving potential.
The five of us walked out to an area in Tokyo with something
of a concentration of ski-shops and made our way through them looking the
things we needed. On entering one store, I saw a rack of gloves and remembered
that I’d left my day-to-day gloves back in Oz. Given the price of these was
about seven dollars I figured it was enough of a bargain that it was worth investing
in them. I grabbed them and threw them in with Caroline’s shopping. It was only
after she’d paid and questioned what we’d bough that cost so much that I
realised I’d managed to make a very poor currency conversion and was out but a
fact of 10. My bargain seven dollar gloves had cost me more like sixty five! Not
much one can do but suck it up, laugh about it and pray I don’t lose them and
become even more of a laughing stock!
We split up at that point, Caroline and I heading back to
the hotel while Michael, Olivia and Sam went in search of things they wanted. Given
we had some time before we had to meet up for dinner, Caroline and I decided to
go find a garden or something to walk through. I googled the local area and
there was one within a ten minute walk, so off we went.
We stayed at the same hotel we’re at this year on our last trip back in 2019 and had always predominantly travelled about by train; either on the metro or the JR lines. It turns ou the thing we’d never done was walk about five minutes from the hotel to find the Sumida River. It’s funny how the convenience of travel can take away your appreciation for what’s around you if you can’t actually see any of it. Given we’d found it, we took advantage of it. We walked around the small garden we found and then out to the river and along it for a while. As it was dusk when we were walking, we stayed long enough for it to get dark and to appreciate the views. It was one of those unplanned moments that becomes and accidental highlight of the day.
For dinner, the kids took us out for Yakiniku near the hotel.
It was a fabulous meal though has always the menu had some interesting options that we decided not to pursue. Namely offal, or as it seems to be collectively called in this restaurant, Numbles. There’s clearly a market for offal here, but I’m okay with leaving it for the locals. What amused me on this occasion was more the different classifications of offal. I mean, premium offal? There’s not part of offal that seems to require the word premium to be used in my mind. I did insist that it wouldn’t be fair to leave without having tried something off the numbles menu, knowing as I said to everyone that there was the option for cheek meat. It was worth seeing the look on everyone’s face just to say I wanted some numbles.
Post dinner, we headed back into Akihabara just to see it in its night time glory and to find some dessert in the form of a Japanese crepe. Successful on both counts, we had a quick look at the local Don Quixote store in search of a well-priced bottle of whiskey to drink while we’re travelling about.
I found a bottle that I’d bought on a previous trip and after
the debacle with the gloves had to check with Caroline if was doing the math conversion right. After
all, it was either in the order of a hundred dollars, which seemed way over-priced
for what it was, or it was in the order of ten dollars which seemed a little on
the ridiculously cheap side. I wasn’t trusting myself to that math again in
case it was actually a hundred dollars. With confirmation that it was in fact in
the range of ten dollars, I quickly grabbed a bottle to purchase, feeling like
I was getting away with theft!
That simply left us to make our way back to the hotel to
sleep in preparation for the following day’s arrivals.
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