Day 10

N.B. This was written shortly after I returned and will be rewritten as and when I get time.

Heading back to Tokyo on the Shinkansen took about 3 hours which meant we had the entire afternoon to do any shopping and so forth. So I took another stab at heading to Akihabara, this time using the overland trains. This was a wise move as the shops are all around the overland station rather than the subway station I got before.

Before long I’d found Gamers (let me tell you, searching for that on the tinterweb is not easy) as well as another similar store called AsoBitCity. I could have spent twice as long and three times as much in those places, however my luggage was stuffed when I came to Japan so space was an issue, suffice to say I picked up some nice swag.

The hotel we were staying it was smack bang in the middle of Shinjuku, Shinjuku station is the busiest in the world and sees around 2 million people pass through it every day so of course I went and got lost in it. Interesting station, lots to look at, but at rush hour and a bag full of purchases, I really just wanted to get back.

No sooner than I had did we head out for our last meal which was on the most unhealthy for the entire trip. Basically, you go to a counter and get a lot of stuff on wooden skewers (meat, veg, dumplings etc.). Then, at your counter-top table, you have a bowl of breadcrumbs, a bowl of batter, and a friar. Fried stuff on sticks!

After that our tour leader took a few of us to karaoke where I proceeded to slaughter some songs, after which we all wandered around Shinjuku, skirting the red light district. Let me tell you, no one does prostitutes like Japan, you have a board in front of a seedy little place, and you basically go in, point to the board at the girl you want, then go do your thing. Only Japan could organise prostitution like that.

After drinking at an “English” pub for a while, we all stumbled back to the hotel at about 2am, for which I had to be up at 6am to catch my train to Narita for my flight back.