The way to a longer life...

... According to my theory, is lots of stairs and no rubbish bins.

Stairs are everywhere! So is a lack of rubbish bins. And steep slopes to every place of interest.

This is inside the tokyo tower by the way.

Post-trip

So we went up to the special observation deck. There was a long queue and it cost another 600 yen.

I couldn't see much difference in the scenery for that extra 100m. It was just foggy everywhere!

Somewhere beyond, there must be Mt. Fuji....Somewhere...

I remembered somewhat vaguely from Japan Hour that there was a "see-through" floor at Tokyo Tower, so we circled around the deck a couple of times, trying to find it. No luck, so we didn't stay long there. The space was kind of small anyway.

We went down, back to the main observatory via the lift, and then to the level below it. There was a small shrine, a cafe, and an open space where gigs were held.

And then we saw it.

It didn't feel scary looking down that 150m to the foot of the tower. It just didn't feel real (thus not scary), but it was!

Afterwards we went to the "Foot town", 4 levels at the base of the tower which consists of souvenir shops (with ugly magnets), wax museum (which we didn't go into because I'm already freaked out by BJD, I don't want to see life-size ones) and some other eateries. I'm not sure if there's an aquarium or if I mixed that up with Wing Takanawa (the shopping centre at our hotel).

The Hello Kitty machine reminded me of a certain colleague, so I decided to buy one for her. I believe in buying things for people, if I look at the things, and they reminded me of the person.

We couldn't go back the way we came...

After confirming with the information counter, our way back to the hotel was via the Daimon station.

It was a very long walk :(

It took us around 20 minutes or so, past some buildings, a cemetery, a huge temple, and even a huge gate, heralding the Daimon town, aptly called...Daimon (Big Gate ?)

The roads were pretty quiet, kind of surprising for a tourist area. I guess most tourists are staying away after all.

A side note here: entrances to subway stations are pretty sneaky. They tend to get wedged between two shops. One can easily mistake it for stairs leading to some seedy place.

We picked up our 1000 yen discount coupon at the counter for asking them to not do housekeeping for our room, but we didn't manage to find the time to spend it :(

We spent our evening experiencing cinema in Japan - It was quite an experience.

1. It's blardy expensive. Or it could be that it's because it's hotel cinema. Ordinarily, it would have cost us around SGD30, but since we were lodging at the hotel, it cost around $12-15.
2. At least their cinema seats were wide...it's kind of like Cathay. Very comfy.
3. Melon soda sucks. It tastes like those banana cordial drinks with carbonated water.
4. The most important thing to note! We realised that it's not only done on the streets...Japanese people RETURN their food trays to the counters, no matter what! When we bought the drinks, they were placed in a basket-tray. And we had to take it with us when we left the cinema, separate our rubbish to flammable and non-flammable, and put the basket-tray back at the counter.
   
   Initially we left the basket-tray behind (you know, like what we do at the cinemas here) but this old man, who, for whatever reasons, came to watch Paradise Kiss...alone, kept pointing at the basket-tray. (Please lah, if we can watch the movie unsubbed, we surely know how to understand some Japanese). So anyway, we went back to our seat and retrieved the basket-tray.
   
   Actually, I think we should implement this in cinemas here...but then again, think of all those teenagers we're putting out of jobs...

Thus we spent our last night at Shinagawa...

Checklist: 5 June (Sun) Harajuku, Shibuya, Ebisu & Tokyo Tower

1. Harajuku
1. Harajuku (johnnys shop)
2. Takeshita Dori
3. Daiso
4. (optional) Uniqlo
2. Shibuya
1. Take photo with Hachiko at shibuya
2. find a weird vending machine FAILED
3. Ebisu Garden Place
4. Hiroo Mosque / Arabic Islamic Institute (Ebisu/Hiroo)
5. Tokyo Tower