nerds, arcade machines and gag balls

Well tonight marks our thirty seventh day in Tokyo (I think) if it's not, something has gone awry, we've been here forever!

Weather forcast: wet and overcast, turning into intermittent sun and mugginess
Planned activities: Achiabara, Imperial Palace, Collect Wifi
Completed activities: Achiabara, Collect Wifi (wahoooooo)
Today's theme: Trains

As the sun rose early, the same couldn't be said for the heavy clouds over the city. We packed our belongings and headed out to start our day, we arrived at a new train station, after a lengthy walk and made our way to Shinjuku to leave our bags for our trip around the city. Achiaraba our first stop, after a 20 minute train journey. 

Achiabara is known by many as "Geek City", a place where anime and porn become one, and they do so right on the main streets! The street gave off Scarborough on a Saturday afternoon vibes: claw machines, arcades, trinket shops and dildos. Well... that last bit might be slightly different to Scarborough...

Colin went big-willy hunting while the rest of us checked out the bdsm floor and our eyes were opened to the oddity of Japanese porn... Each to their own I guess...

As has been a recurring theme of the holiday, we spent a lot more time on the train today, returning to Shinjuku to catch the Imperial Palace. We arrived at the closest station to glorious sunshine! Our first vitamin d of the holiday. We grabbed a few photos, interrupted a local marathon and headed into the palace gardens. Unfortunately, our time was cut short as Colin had arranged a pick up for the elusive wifi (which was a 20 minute train journey away). We ran through busy stations, over crowded platforms, navigated moving carriages and arrived with moments to spare to collect the pocket wifi. An incredible feat for our young Anya who had survived 37 days on 2 meals...

We celebrated with an ice-cream and a brief rest before Paul made the very valid point that our bags would be locked away for the night if we didn't get moving quick. Off for the train we went!

We collected our bags, heaved them through the stations for great distances and headed for the coolest part of the journey so far, just another short train ride away. Slowly, we lumbered through the last train station to board a bullet train(!), our last train of the day!!! Like Zak on his driving test, we hit the highest of speeds but felt like we were travelling at 20. 

A day spent on the train would no doubt have you thinking we were at our destination, ready to relax for our forthcoming day in the vicinity of Mount Fuji but you'd be wrong... a 50 minute bus ride, through the winding hills, lay between us and our perfect, quintisential Japanese accomodation. It actually couldn't have been a more perfect setting to end a busy day. 

Just a final thought, we left the house in Hebburn on Wednesday morning - it is now Saturday night and we've only slept two nights, this sounds like start of a really annoying riddle...

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