Not quite as late a start as yesterday but not far off. No hassle from the cleaner but we do get a stare as we march down the corridor. Straight onto the metro where before even buying a ticket we have our first problem. How much does it cost? Well, above the ticket machines are three or four topographical tube maps. None of which are quite like the one we have. The first one is the best and looks similar to our map but with three key differences: it's older as it doesn't have some of the lines; there are no stations [names] only prices where the stations would be; and they've changed the colour of some of the lines. I was going to add that it's drawn in a different style (fatter lines, rounder curves, squashed slightly) but that's just petty. The other maps I cannot fathom at all, they have prices and stations but only one to three lines, drawn completely differently -- often involving a long diagonal -- so we ignore them. The map says ¥190 to Shinjuku Sanchome, OK. We have to transfer at Ichigaya where the barrier machine says "no!" -- sadly, not literally. There is a special reticketing booth where we have to pay an extra ¥70 each and get ¥260 tickets instead.
They provide helpful station and surround maps to help you find your way about, it is confusing though that they've spent time and effort redrawing the maps so that they are visually correct for each location, ie. if you look at a map facing a corridor it might be orientated with north up and might be a portrait map, further up the corridor, the same map on the wall will be landscape, rotated through 90 degrees and have east or west up depending on the side of the corridor. If, as you do in several cavernous twisting stations need to recheck the map having made too many left turns you must check which way on the map is north otherwise you've no hope.
At Shinjuku we emerge into a busy shopping area and head towards Shinjuku Gyoen, the park. ¥200 lets you into the park which is quite large consisting of several formal gardens (French: roses, trimmed ordered hedges, lines of trees; Japanese: rolling hillocky areas with short trees and humpback bridges over water; English: large open grass area ending in large gravel area) and some greenhouses (with, amazingly, not a single plant in flower). There was an old boy sat by the lily pond in the greenhouses looking a touch wet, soaked camera, clothes dripping. A trail of watery footsteps led back to the other end of the pond where the walls were drenched. Poor chap.
The stars, though, of Shinjuku Gyoen in April are the 1500 cherry trees which, in even the slightest breeze, produce a magical snow shower effect. 
The Japanese love this and have packed the place, a fantastic number here with tripods and expensive cameras to capture the beauty of the cherry tree. This being Japan about one in twenty photographs being taken on a mobile phone.
We take a coffee in "Cafe de Bare" where there is no English on the menu and like so many places not even pictures to point at before marching up to the skyscrapers. No longer the striking symbol they were -- there are a few more 60 storey buildings around now -- they do still command a good view. The Sumitomo building is a "triangle with two corners squared off" shape(!) [the profile of a cut diamond] on the outside but has a hollow triangular middle which is impressive to look up through and down on. I thought there were more viewing areas up top but maybe that's because we looked through the restaurant windows. Can't afford that luxury this time. Certainly from the one viewing area Tokyo spreads away flat as a pancake.
We went for a wander through some of the seedier parts of Shinjuku which include the blowfish restaurants (parts of which are some 220 times more toxic than cyanide) where the fish, looking remarkably unblowed (I guess like pufferfish it's a defence mechanism), swim dolefully in a tank waiting to be served. We mooched around a bookshop ([in] the foreign books section all the section titles were only in English even though most of the books were in Japanese) and a department store (minature Samurai gear kits for up to ¥1,000,000, no TV/audio and a rotten range of furniture) before calling it a day and heading home. Standing outside the department store we find ourselves next to a Nissan Fairlady Z, a rather nifty looking motor.
This time we paid ¥260 for the return trip but at Ichigaya we had to exchange our no good ¥260 tickets for, um, ¥260 tickets that worked. Pass. On the first night we'd spotted an Italian that a) had English on the menu and b) had a queue outside -- must be good. So we headed back there for a nice meal.
In the room we sat down for a minute and Alien Ressurection, I believe, appeared on the TV in the original Japanese. We watched it for a bit when after an ad break something about bilingual appeared. Several buttons on the remote later (requiring turning the TV off and on to escape the wake up call page etc.) I pressed the "BIL" button and we watched the rest in English. Japanese TV is curiously introspective, barely any mention of the Gulf over the ten channels and only maybe ten seconds even on the sports channels of Tiger Woods even though he should be championing Augusta. Game shows and baseball are the fare.
We weren't offered a free drink with today's Internet vouchers. I went up to ask and was directed to a drinks machine. I pressed the only button I recognised, Fanta but in a lurid green colour. The same as my drink. My mum sent me pictures of my nephews David and Sam. David and Sam
Dai Ichi Inn Hotel, Ikebukuro, Tokyo N35.73201 E139.71260 Elev. 72m
Copyright 2003 Ian Fitchet. All rights reserved.