Japan 2023 - Day 4

Today started with a run. Not everyone’s choice on holiday, but something I have been enjoying when I travel for a while now. On one of our previous trips to Japan when I was significantly fitter than I am currently, I discovered that there’s a loop around the Imperial Palace in Tokyo that’s about as close to five kilometres as one needs. There’s no traffic lights and only a relatively minor change in elevation, so a great place for a run. So I did it twice, because ten kilometres was what I was running at the time. It’s also quite a scenic run, so I had declared that I’d like to fit in a single lap this trip if I could. Thomas was keen to do it with me, while a few other members of the party said they’d be up to walk it.

So we (mostly) worked out the logistics for a start time that would get us back in time for the second group of go-karters to go have their fun. If there’s one thing that’s consistent with travelling with a larger group, it’s the cat-herding effect that even the simplest tasks seem to generate. But we got there. Now in my mind there was a very clear plan. Thomas and I run around the loop and when we get tot the end, we walk back to where everyone else was walking around. That should have had them about three-quarters of the way around and we could all walk the last quarter together and return.

That was what I thought the plan was. And apparently I was right. But the plan changed. I mean it makes sense that when you’ve gone to all the effort of visiting the palace and have the opportunity to go into the gardens, that you do so. Which was fine other than the fact that by the time Thomas and I had walked back to meet them, we’d basically walked 2/3rds of the way around and were getting short on time for the go-kart booking (which Thomas was part of). No issue, we’d just go straight there and everything would be good (other than Thomas not getting a shower and possibly being a little on the stinky side). And at no point did I google map the wrong hotel and nearly send us an hour out the way. Didn’t happen and even if it did, I realised before we got on the wrong train!

So with correct directions allegedly sorted I, being the sanitary one,  opted to return to the hotel to shower and then meet up with the pack later after they’d dropped off the go-karters. I was successful and the other half of the party was mostly successful in getting to the go-karting with only a minor detour.

The rest of us met up with Sam, Michael and Olive and opted for a yummy yakiniku lunch. There were a couple of items on the menu that were listed as having ‘death sauce’ so even though I like a bit of spice, I opted not to try them. Apparently Michael was a little more adventurous, but given we were split across a couple of tables, I wasn’t aware of this until right at the end of the lunch he offered me a bit of death-sauced chicken to try. Let’s just say that it was appropriately named! It’s okay, and by the time we made I through to have crepes some 15 minutes later, I could almost taste mine.

With lunch out of the way, we ascended to the 9^th floor of Yodabashi camera where it turns out there’s both a golf driving range and a baseball batting set-up. It wasn’t something we’d ever tried before so we gave it a go. Pitching speeds varied from 90km/hr up to 150km/hr on the cages we were using. During my turn I started at 110 and managed to scare a few balls before connecting with a couple. On my second go around I ramped it up to 130 and quickly stepped out the way of the first pitch with my tail between my legs. Michael had attempted a 150km/hr pitch and having stood behind it, I really didn’t need to subject myself to that madness!

With our batting cage fun over we linked up with the rest of the group and immediately split up so that Caroline could shop for a new helmet (with me in tow) while others went to visit Senso-Ji and the adjacent market before we would all link up again to visit the Tokyo Skytree (which included a mandatory trip to a Pokémon store, though amazingly compared to previous trips it is so far the only one we’ve been to)! We were up the top of the Skytree over dusk and into evening which provided some awesome views.

Our plan for dinner was to visit a restaurant we’d eaten at twice on our last visit because a) its close to the hotel and b) we thought it could probably accommodate all twelve of us. That part of things was successful.

Jason and I ordered whiskey’s and because I was anticipating a bit of a wait before we’d get to order a second, I suggested we double up, which we did. Then we were asked what size we’d like to which we answered big ones, but given the size of the drinks we’d seen Caroline suggested that maybe we didn’t actually need two drinks each. We bowed to her superior intelligence and attempted to amend our order. Something was a little lost in translation though … we ended up with two each anyway … one with coke, one with soda. And the girls, not to be outdone opted for their drinks large sized too!

We battled through …

Of course the highlight of the meal was the secret delivery of the very special extra dish. It was something I thought I’d probably only ever order once in my life, but given the chance to share the joy with our friends, I ordered it again. Now if you want your friends to eat something and no think there’s anything wrong with it, you either eat it and hold all breath/expression or other sign of anything untoward (like Michael did with me with the death sauce) or you simply eat it with them. What we ate wasn’t overly hot or anything, so that wasn’t an issue.

Bel had a bit of a taste and wasn’t impressed, so left the rest of hers for Jason. Jason ate his and like me, determined that it wasn’t terrible, but neither was it something you’d join a long line to purchase. Which of course was the time to let everyone that was trying it to know what it was they were eating.

Some jokes will never get old. Like Bel letting Jason eat her rectum …

It’s hard to top that for a night out, but we gave it a go. One of the things on our list of stuff to do for the trip was karaoke. Caroline opted for sense and sleep and Sam was good enough to come along to at least get us through the door and set up to sing. Well maybe sing is over-stating things. All in all we had a good time, though I think there was more butchery than karaoke, especially when yours truly was allowed near a microphone!

 

Japan 2023 - Day 3

 The first order of business for the day (after a local bakery breakfast) was trying to coordinate when Emily and Tom would make it to the hotel after their arrival into Tokyo. We’d planned to head to Team Labs (hyperlink) once they’d arrived, but it was something of an unknown as to when they’d actually get to the hotel after going through all required steps to get there. In the end they made pretty good time and now with a posse of seven, we headed out to find Team Labs  to experience something a bit different.

We trekked our way out to the Tokyo bay area where team labs is and given the time of day, decided to find something to eat before we went through (given the recommended 2 hour duration to explore the experience).

Michael found us a place that did katsu which became the plan. We trooped in and were given a table that unfortunately only seated 6 people. Thomas was directed to a separate table. I took pity on him and thought I’d completely ruin it for him by making him suffer my company as well.

There was a Japanese woman and man at the table between Thomas and I and the rest of the family. They offered to swap but looked way too settled to disturb them to that extent given there was a divider between them and the rest of our family so we declined their offer. After a couple of minutes they asked Thomas and I where we were from. When they heard we were from Australia we began a very stilted exchange of words that certainly couldn’t be rated as a conversation which basically became a rundown of things they either knew of or had visited in Australia and we had to work out what they were … Koala, Sydney Harbour Bridge, Opera House … you get the idea.

After a while they started asking about sake. We managed to work out they were asking if we were okay with drinking sake and when we said yes, a very large bottle of sake appeared on the table and was being poured. My prior very limited experience with sake saw it essentially poured into a shot glass (probably wrongly to) but this was a very large pour. I approached it with some trepidation because like most things, there’s good quality sake and poor quality as well. It turned out to be delicious. After a little while Sam joined in and actually had a bit of a conversation with them which resulted in us finding out another word they knew … present. They gifted the family three small bottles of sake to take with us. Throughout the whole exchange though it wasn’t quite clear whether the guy was trying to ascertain whether we thought the woman was attractive, trying to set her up with one of us or maybe just trying to sell her. Sam seemed to think that she was perhaps lonely, didn’t have a lot of friends and he was trying to help her out. We never quiet established what the relationship between them was. Again, according to Sam, they offered to show us around that night because they guy had grown up in the area we were staying in. We didn’t take them up on the offer as it would basically have subjected Sam to even more interpreting than he’d already been doing. Based on what we saw though it would have been a boozy night!

Having conquered and won at lunch, we headed off to team labs where we had a great time exploring the exhibits. 

I’d certainly recommend it if you’re in Tokyo and looking for something to do.

One of the things I’ve had on my list of ‘want to do in Tokyo’ is to go go-karting through the streets. A friend had done it around the time of our first trip and the Telfords did it during our last trip, but this was the first time that Emily has been old enough and licensed enough to do it. Unfortunately, because of COVID and the size of our assault on Tokyo, booking everyone in one go wasn’t ever going to happen. The most they’d take at once was four, so we’ve split ourselves over three groups. Today was the day for the first group; Michael, Olivia, Samuel and Emily. So after getting out of team labs we headed back to Akihabara to drop them off to go-kart.

While the first four were lucky enough to explore Tokyo on four very small wheels, the last three of us met up with a friend of Tom’s who was on his last day in Tokyo. We went through BIC camera quickly in search of some whiskey to bring home. That was accomplished and then we headed out to find some dinner ahead of the impending Rowland invasion. We found a ramen joint with zero English where you selected your meal outside and paid via vending machine to produce a ticket. It wasn’t the greatest meal I’ve ever had in Japan, nor was it the worse and it did what it was supposed to do and filled us up. Unfortunately Thomas’ friend had some sort of medical issue and after an extended trip to the bathroom announced he had food lodged in his throat and would need to seek medical attention! He didn’t appear particularly distressed, but at the same time, we were a little worried and sent Tom with him while Caroline and I headed back to meet up with the Rowlands who had made it to Tokyo.

We met them at the hotel and took them down the road for dinner at a local little family restaurant and the settled I for our first combined assault on the land of the rising sun. Oh and we did receive notification that Finn had managed to dislodge the food stuck in his throat without medical intervention much to our collective relief!

Japan 2023 - Day 2

 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 6^th 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.

Japan 2019 - Day 16 - The final Day

Caroline and I had planned on getting up early and going to see if we could watch some Sumo Wrestling training. Unfortunately a crap night’s sleep meant that we opted for a bit of a sleep in instead.

Other than getting to the airport on time, we had committed to a final trip to find the shoulder-riding Evie for Emily and then we wanted to head to the Senso-ji shrine and the markets around it for some final souvenirs and gifts.

 Emily, Caroline and I went Evie hunting and left the boys to finalise their packing and to meet us at the market. We navigated our way back to the Tokyo Skytree where the Pokémon centre is and found three Evies remaining on the shelf. We quickly snagged one and personally I think we deserve some sort of parental award for the effort! There was one very excited squeal of glee and two parental sighs of relief.

The last two times that we’ve been to Tokyo we’ve talked about dressing Emily up in a Kimono, but time has always seemed to get away from us and we haven’t managed to do so. The market adjacent Senso-ji is a prime place for such activity and as we entered we saw plenty of girls walking around in them. 

Seeing other people wearing kimonos was one thing, working out where to hire one was quite another, but we were actually successful. We may not have got full value out of it given Emily was only dressed in it for an hour or so when she could have had it to the end of the day, but I think by the time she was out of it, she was more than happy with how long she’d worn it. Apparently correct posture wasn’t optional, but enforced by the constraints of the clothing.

We found what we were looking for and then swung by the hotel before picking up our luggage and heading for the airport. Unlike our last trip when Jetstar cancelled our flight, things went a lot more smoothly. There was no smashed alcohol in our luggage, the plane left on time and other than the occasional bout of pain from my arm preventing me from sleeping, we transited home safely.

Now that we’re back I’m already missing the toilets. Especially given this one was off the lobby of the hotel we stayed in in Tokyo.

If that was one of the hotel’s highlights, the pillows were one of its low-lights. Because when I say pillow, I really mean more of a bag of soggy newspapers than an actual pillow. Caroline was good enough to snag a second one for me but between the ongoing pain from my crash and the lack of any comfort from those pillows, sleep was a precious commodity that wasn’t well distributed.

One last thing from our trip. About half way through, Sam mentioned Tinder and the matches that he was getting around Matsumoto. Talk about surprised. Of all the boys, Sam was the last one that I expected to have Tinder on his phone, let alone to be actively using it. Turns out he was using it to connect with girls that he could then practice conversing in Japanese with! Only Sam …

And then we were home ...

Japan 2019 - Day 15

We didn’t start early today (something about Tokyo time) . Michael didn’t get back to the hotel until about 3am after they’d missed the last train home (About 12:15am which is surprising given the late night activity. They were within walking distance so it wasn’t too bad – it just meant they stopped for a couple of extra drinks along the way). No-one else seemed to be in a rush and given Caroline, Thomas, Emily and I hadn’t reached the hotel until about 12:30am I wasn’t about to push too hard.

Having missed Itoya the day before, that became our first destination ahead of a visit to the Samurai Museum and a trip to Shibuya to have another look at the scramble crossing and finally, a trip back past one of the Pokémon centres so that Emily could pick up a shoulder-riding Evie that she’d seen in the first two that we’d visited but that hadn’t been in the third.

Along the way I stopped and picked up some Whiskey and saw this delightfully narrow building, its size standing out due to the absence of its neighbour to the right.

Itoya was as amazing the second time around as it was the first, though having seen it before we didn’t spend quite as much time sifting through the floors as we did last trip. We picked up some pens and paper and the like and then headed for the Samurai museum.

 When we got off the train and started navigating to the museum we started to wonder whether we’d managed to end up in completely the wrong area. More than any other part of Tokyo we’d been to, it screamed entertainment district, by which I mean pubs and clubs and the like. Sure enough though, the Museum was nestled within the district. We managed to walk in 10 minutes before a free guided tour and I have to say, having that tour presented in English helped make it one of the best cultural experiences we’ve had in Japan. We learned a lot about the Shogun era of Japan and saw a really cool collection of both authentic and replica Samurai armour and weapons. I have a lot of photos, but there's no way I will put them all here!

 

At the end of the tour there was a short katana wielding demonstration which while a bit on the try hard side of the scale, was still fun to watch.

Our next stop was Shibuya where Thomas wanted to get a time-lapse of the scramble crossing from the Starbucks that over-looks it. We ordered hot chocolates, watched the crossing for a bit and arranged to again catch up with the Telfords for dinner.

Dinner turned out to be a typically Temby Tokyo experience that we shared with the Telfords. Given it was our last night in the country there was a desire to find something authentically Japanese, but the options we were finding either were going to struggle to fit us all, or weren’t quite what we were looking for. In the end we split the party and ate at a more Chinese style restaurant than Japanese, but we had at least sated our hunger.

Michael and Thomas headed off with Max to drink, play Pachinko and try some claw games. Sam, Emily, Caroline and I had a stab at making it to the nearest Pokémon centre to acquire the elusive shoulder-riding Evie.

Google told us it was 20 minutes away when the store closed in 21 minutes. With an ever-increasingly nervous Emily, we rode the train to the stop and decided to send the two young ones ahead given they’re capable of running. Caroline and I walked as quickly as we could and made it to the store to find that it was barricaded off. We talked our way through by way of telling the girl that we thought our kids were inside. Turns out they weren’t, so we asked about the Evie only to be told that they’d sold out.

When we met up with Emily and Sam they’d taken a wrong turn and hadn’t even made it into the store. There was a little bit of devastation on Emily’s part as we rode the train back to our hotel.

There was but one thing left for the night. Emily wanted a go at a claw machine. In the times that we’d been previously she’d only had two turns at the controls and given the way her brothers had talked the whole thing up, she really wanted to win something herself. So being the sucker Dad that I am, I took her in to Akihabara to try and win something.

We toured two places before deciding to go to the first one where we’d been so nicely treated the day before. With a combination of cash, requests for assistance and perseverance, we extracted a Pokémon plushie from the machine and Emily was happy.

Caroline was super-amazing and packed ahead of our departure the following morning.

Michael’s dumpling count: 123

Japan 2019 - Day 14

There were three key activities on the agenda for today. Pokemon, shopping and Karaoke.

There’s four main Pokémon Centres in Tokyo and we’d been to three of them before, but the kids were of course keen to check them all, particularly as there’s generally something unique to each centre. We’d decided to head to Yokohama first, but a late start to the day and the distance to travel meant that we cut it from the agenda before we were committed to the long train ride to get there.

Opening the loot from the Random Pokeballs and boxes 

Instead we went to the Nihombashi centre, then the Skytree centre before finally making our way out to the Mega Centre at Ikebukuro. Purchases were generally held over to the last one other than anything unique that might have been sought. Unfortunately some of the things that were seen at the first two weren’t available at the third one which mostly disappointed Emily. Other than acquiring Pokémon related dust collecting souvenirs we at least managed to find new coats for both Thomas and Emily which was a great relief because it cut further retail hunts from our last couple of days in the country.

We hoped to squeeze Itoya into our schedule at the end of the day and decided to meet up with the Telfords again and share that wonder with them, but needed to eat first. We ended up having Mexican because why wouldn’t you?

Unfortunately time ran away and we were unable to get to Itoya, but we did head back to the hotel to drop off our shopping ahead of the impending karaoke session.

Those that opted for karaoke, which in the case of the Tembys was everyone except Sam trekked back to Akihabara and into one of the many places dedicated to the pursuit. We were assigned our own room (as is done here) and Michael and Max began the process of deciphering how to actually cue up a song and set it in motion.

The hour passed pretty quickly and with challenge associated with finding songs to sing meant that there was lots of Taylor Swift and at least three repetitions of some Disney song from Mulan. I certainly proved that my talent does not lie in signing, something my, sister has been telling me for a very long time.

When you finish a round of karaoke in Akihabara and you have Michael in tow (and one Telford who missed the prior night’s fun) there’s really only one likely outcome – more claw machines. So that’s where we headed. It may have been pressing 11pm, but the floors of claw machines were still taking money.

What we did find though, was help. Whether it was because of how late at night it was or some other unfathomable reason, the attendant on the floor we went to was very generous with helping and repositioning stuffed Pokémon for extraction from the machines. As a result, another one joined the horde of stuff we’ll need to squeeze into our luggage.

We were eventually escorted out of the place because they were closing, and I headed for the hotel, leaving some of the younger troops to carry on drinking.

Japan 2019 - Day 13

I’m a few days behind with this, which based on our last two trips to Japan isn’t unusual once we hit Tokyo. We move into  a different time space once we hit Tokyo.

While we’re skiing, time is dictated somewhat by the fact that the lifts don’t typically run at night (though there are times where there’s night skiing) and by the fact that the legs tend to be a bit worn out by the end of a day of skiing. As noted earlier on this trip, I usually push for us to be on the mountain as soon as the lifts are running and we typically ski until close to the last lifts operation. This year that wasn’t quite the case and the fact that I spent the second part of our ski adventure injured tempered my push for us to be up and out the door so early.

After a long day of travel to Tokyo the day before and a reasonably late night, no one was particularly bent on getting out of the door early. We hadn’t planned a lot for the day, but we did know that the Telford’s were arriving into Tokyo that morning and that they’d be staying at the same hotel (having planned it before our departure).

I’d pushed for us to go have a look at Takeshita Street and that ended up on the agenda for the day. We travelled in to Akihabara to pick up 72 hour Metro tickets only to find (and remember) that we needed all of our passports in order to be able to buy them. We’d only brought one with us just in case we happened to buy something duty free. That meant someone had to head back to the hotel to collect the rest of the passports. Caroline was the hero who agreed to go while the rest of us wandered around a couple of stores.

The delay meant that Caroline met up with the Telfords at the hotel and so they joined us in our trek to Takeshita Street. Reaching the top of Takeshita Street was one of those oh my God moments. The street itself has a reputation for being something of a get anything and everything kind of street, popular with the youth of Tokyo and something of a fashion centre.

Emily was after boots and a coat and Thomas was after a coat, so it seemed like a reasonable place to start the search even though it was so crowded that movement was an interesting proposition. We quickly decided that twelve of us trying to tour the street together wasn’t going to work and opted for splitting up and meeting later, then quickly abandoned thoughts of crossing the street and went down one side and up the other instead. By the time we’d toured up and down the street (a good 2 hour exercise) we’d seen all sorts. Crepes, Idol goods, food and a range of fashion from acid-tripping space cat t-shirts, to punk, Lolita and a range in between. There certainly didn’t seem to be any rules to how the whole place was arranged. In once case you had to walk through a lingerie store to get to the upstairs to a shop selling anime goods. Completely crazy.

Not only did we all survive, but all twelve of us actually managed to find one another at the end of the process and find Emily a pair of cheap boots! Talk about success.

By the time that we’d managed to complete the venture, dinner was looming which with twelve people in tow looked like being an interesting proposition. One thing that we did know was that the restaurant that we’d eaten at the day before had sufficient seating upstairs, the food was good and most importantly we knew exactly where it was. So we went back.

I can’t remember as I write this on the plane home whether I posted the image of the menu with the more interesting options … liver, diaphragm, guts … rectum. As we’d walked home the night before, we’d discussed the fact that the diaphragm was listed as skirt steak and was very tasty. We wondered whether rectum would actually be rump steak. There’s only one way you can find these things out. When we returned the second night I suggested that I was going to order the rectum to see whether our theory held true.

I did it. I ordered rectum for dinner. That’s something I thought I’d never say. Unfortunately our theory was incorrect; it clearly wasn’t rump steak. It didn’t look offensive, but I was left facing the fact that if it wasn’t rump steak, it probably truly was rectum, probably pork rectum from its appearance.

Having ordered it, there was only one thing left to do … taste it. Not many people were up for a taste of my rectum, but that’s kind of understandable really . I tasted it and it wasn’t offensive or anything. It was mostly a bit chewy, like gristle. It came served on a skewer with about five small pieces on each of the two skewers. In the end there was one piece left. As the person that ordered it, I figured I should be the one to finish it. Unfortunately it was quite a large piece and the more I chewed it the more I thought about what it was. In the end I quickly swallowed it down half chewed and put it behind me.

The rest of dinner was as good as the first night, though given we’d been separated into two tables we certainly managed to over-order. Again. At least we knew how big the serves of fries were going to be.

Having finished dinner, there was a call to try the PachinkoSlots by some of the younger members of the group. I opted to go along with them if for no other reason than curiosity. We’d been to Tokyo twice before, walked past them many times, but I still had no idea what they were.

Michael, Thomas, Max, Gigi, Sarah and I walked to Akihabara and into the first Pachinko Slot establishment we found. About twenty minutes later we walked out again with less money and yet no real improvement in our understanding of what these slots were.

I watched Michael play mostly. It involved putting money in, watching little ball-bearings fall down and lots of lights and crazy things happening. And then suddenly there was no money left. Even had they won, they couldn’t have converted the winnings to cash. You can trade the little ball bearings for prizes or preserve your balance on a card to play another time, but the only way to convert to cash apparently involves a grey market and some dubious exchanges. I think I was happier that the money just disappeared.

Of course being in Akihabara meant that we were right next door to the claw machines. Well, we couldn’t deprive the Telfords of the chance to experience that wonder! We made our way in and watched Michael suck Max into having a go. I think it was best summed up when upon committing additional funds to the machine one of his sisters stated, “You’re a dickhead Max.” But in his defence, he was having fun! And he won a prize, though won is possibly over-exaggerating how it came about. There was a machine on easy mode with a big fat fluffy hedgehog waiting to be claimed. Max had a couple of attempts before help was called for. Before too long the attendant had all but put the toy into the claim box to help him finally win it.

Probably the funniest item that was acquired was a sizeable plastic Bowser.

The game consisted of a toy balanced with a lever holding it in place. Around the outside was a ring of lights. They lit up one at a time so that the light spun around the toy. You had to press the button to stop it on the one with the lever which would then drop away and release the toy. It was also on easy mode.

Max had a go and missed by two lights. Before long Michael was being talked into have a turn just because Max had. Michael tells it that he had a go just to go one better than Max or at worst. To not miss by more than Max had. He nailed it first go. Unfortunately that meat even more crap for our luggage.

Michael’s Dumpling count: 107