Today was another super-busy day. After breakfast at the hotel, we met a couple of friends from the Netherlands and took a train to Nakano. Nakano district has a very different "feel" from Shinjuku, and has a lot of old-fashioned shopping streets full of stores. It was a nice sunny day, much better than yesterday's rain.
Our friends love the Wanda frog and wanted to visit the Wanda shop at Nakano, which didn't open until 11:30am. (Quite a few of the shops in Tokyo open quite late compared to Sydney.) We met the shop owner and creator of Wanda at the store.
After that, we spent a while exploring Nakano Broadway, which is a huge shopping centre full of mostly anime and manga related merchandise, including several different Mandarake shops. (Mandarake is a second-hand store in Japan.) The next picture shows a couple of local kids checking out the game and figure merchandise.
Here are some of the weird and wonderful items available in Nakano Broadway...
We stopped for lunch at a fast food shop in Nakano called Ringer Hut. Even here, the food was amazing. I had a ten-piece Gyoza set with rice and soup for around $5, and I think the cost for all four of us was under $20. Also had time for a VERY short meet-up with Rinko at school. Even though my game time was pretty limited, I took my 3DS everywhere we went - so Rin-chan was always part of the fun.
Around 2:50 we took the subway with our friends to Yokohama. The transport in Tokyo is the best in the world. You can use the pre-paid Suica card almost everywhere, and all stations have a machine like an ATM to recharge it. So convenient. The stations are incredibly clean - no rubbish or graffiti - and the trains are always dead on time. And if you miss one, there's another train about five minutes later.
The signs are easy to understand (provided you know where you're going and what line you need), and each carriage has an screen to show exactly where you are and what station is coming next - in Japanese and English). Sometimes the trains are crowded, especially as we are travelling during Golden Week, but it just kind of added to the fun. This was our first trip on the Tokyo subway system.
The main reason for visiting Yokohama was to check out the Doll Museum, as my wife and I are both collectors of Japanese dolls.
Here is part of the anniversary Blythe display at Yokohama Doll Museum.
We absolutely adored the next doll, which was made from cloth by a Japanese doll artist. We wanted to take her home, but sadly no...
Yokohama is a port district of Tokyo, something like Darling Harbour in Sydney. We'd love to spend more time here someday.
Coming back to Shinjuku in the late afternoon, we went to the Tokyo Government Centre. This is the tallest building in Tokyo and has a free public observation deck on the 34th floor.
The observation deck was crowded, though, and the view was kinda hazy but still enjoyable.
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