We rose earlier today for fear of the cleaning woman returning to reprimand us again, and planned our subway route to Shinjuku Gyoen.
We took the subway to Ichigaya station where we had to change lines and found that we had bought tickets undervalue. It's hardly surprising given that the subway maps vary at each ticket machine, the lines displayed change colours at each station and vary to the next map and all the station names are only written in Japanese Kanji! Luckily the subway does have fare adjuster counters and by repeating your destination to the chap you can pay the additional amount you should have paid initially and receive a replacement ticket.
We successfully emerged at Shinjuku-Sanchome station and walked in the sunshine to Shinjuku Gyoen garden. I had already removed my light jacket and now only had on one layer. My sunglasses made an appearance and my dive computer registered twenty seven degrees!
The garden demanded an entrance fee and must have made a fortune today. The garden was completely packed with Japanese people out on the sunny Sunday to see the blossoming cherry blossoms trees. The gardens were very pretty and we became lost in the other photographers present. Well, this is Japan. We walked through the tropical greenhouse and reached a beautiful lily pond. Had we arrived a bit sooner we would have witnessed an old boy falling in trying to photograph it! He was still mopping up 10 minutes later and had simply put his camera and lenses away wet. Oh dear.
We walked into the shopping area of Shinjuku and had a very expensive drink before reaching the Sumitomo building and ascending straight to the fifty first floor. The building immediately in front of the view over Tokyo's skyline is the Tokyo Metropolitan Government office. It's a big building.
Back at ground level we wandered around the Isetan department store which was a bit disappointing, and neighbouring streets displaying tanks of blowfish, crayfish, flounders and eels, all ready for the cooking pot. We took the subway again to Ichigaya station where this time we found that we had paid the right fare but had somehow managed to obtain incorrect tickets. What? A replacement ticket sufficed. On exiting our terminal destination, Ikebukuro station, the machine spat out my ticket suggesting that it's still valid, but Ian's was retained. Not a good day for the subway perhaps.
We retreated to a nice little Italian restaurant that we identified as a popular little place the other night and were pleased to find the menu was translated for us. The entire restaurant welcomed us as we entered through the door!
While Ian watched 'Alien Resurrection' I wrote my journal. Then we had another stint in the cyber cafe until 00:30 before retiring. I'm pleased that I have begun to make a dent in my six and a half week backlog of typing up my journal now.
I think we must have had a heatwave in Tokyo today, it was very pleasant.
Copyright 2003 Helen Fuller. All rights reserved.