It wasn't a great night's sleep. Matt did ok, but gave up at 5am. I managed 2 x 2 blocks of 2 hours sleep and plenty of snoozing. Tom, on the other hand slept through and didn't wake up until quite late. (Lucky boy).
We didn't stray too far today as we knew that jet lag would have an effect at some stage. We headed back to Tokyo Station, got our Japanese Rail Passes sorted. They start on Saturday, so we won't be going for any long trips for a while yet. We had a look at some Dr Yellow merchandise (it has expanded in the last 2 years, went on the hunt for Uni Qlo (where we got Tom's train T-shirts last time) but we could only find small ones which didn't stock any children's clothes. Not to worry, we have plenty of time yet...
 |
| Tempura Lunch |
Oh well - nevermind, we were getting quite peckish at this point so decided to head towards the food outlets to see what would tempt us. Tempura tempted us, big time, so much so that we were happy to wait in a queue for a while until they could squeeze us in. It was good too. I had a vegetarian plate with soba noodles and Matt a mixed fish bowl with rice which we shared with Tom alongside a side plate of 3 extra ebis (well we would have struggled otherwise with 2 ebi between 3 of us!). It all went down very well. We brought Tom's special chopsticks with us - we bought them in Japan last time - they are smaller than average and have a little clip on them to make them easier to use. Tom uses them at home when we have Shabu Shabu or sukiyaki and he did extremely well with them today. We are hoping to get the clip off them during this holiday. Well there's a demonstration of developing fine motor skills for school!!!!!!
 |
| Komachi |
Next on the itinerary was the event of the day: train spotting at Tokyo station. We weren't alone. There were a handful of other 5 year old boys with their mums on the platform too - it's what you do when you are 5 after all!!!!! We hung around on the JR East shinkansen platform and weren't disappointed. First to arrive was the Max - a double decker shinkansen. Tom when loopy when he saw it. He, of course knows all of the trains from videos on you tube, but this was his first time to see them with his own eyes and he was very excited.
 |
| Hyabusa |
In fact he spent most of the time on the platform jumping up and down in sheer excitement. The next one we saw was the E7 (or Asama) the newest of the shinkansens a white number with blue and gold trimmings. None of us had seen this one before. This one will go to Kanazawa (goes as far as Nagano at the moment) - apparently the actual track laying for this line finished yesterday.
 |
| Happy Train Spotters |
Then... the ones we had all been waiting for - the Hayabusa and the Super-Komachi: otherwise known as the green one and the red one. These truly are amazing to see with the naked eye. I generally don't see the point in train spotting, but found myself pulling out my camera to take photos of these - although it is difficult to translate what you see on to 2d media - you just don't get the same affect. Even better for Tom was that these two were 'kissing' - this caused a lot of jumping up and down. We went down to see the kiss and found lots more little boys also very excited. Even better, another kissing couple arrived on the next track, meaning there were two kissing trains. How much excitement can one little boy (and his Dad) take?
 |
| They are KISSING! |
It was only due to lack of benches on the platform and heat that eventually we left, we were getting tired and thirsty. We headed one stop down the line, found ourselves a cafe for tea and a bun. Well - iced coffee for Matt - which he made me try saying it was sweet and if I like coffee cake then really I should like iced coffee, and anyway Tom is trying lots of new things at the moment, so I should too. I took a huge gulp - OMG!!!!! It was an assault on my mouth! I really can not fathom why oh why anyone would want to drink that liquid. It burnt a ring of terrible bitterness in my mouth - how that can be refreshing or enjoyable is completely unimaginable to me. Yes I know I'm the minority, but really - the rest of the world does have it wrong - it is disgusting!!!!!!
 |
| A proper kiss! |
 |
| A very excited boy! |
Once I had recovered we headed to BIC Camera - one of Matt's favourite electric shops. On the way I noticed a model railway shop, so we had to go in. Matt took a deep breath looking at the prices: the standard size for model railways here is smaller than in the UK, so if you want Japanese trains for our railway, you will be looking at A LOT of money! Oh well it was nice to look! Matt went looking for a new camera bag, he found one but it is a bit pricey so he's thinking about it. We then had a look around the toy section - lots of trains of course to keep a small boy happy. Then we found ourselves in the off licence section (obviously there is an off licence in an electric store) and found a great range of whisky including McClellands - a brand we found last time which is a single malt marketed under this name for Japan. It is extremely well priced - £11 for a 750ml. How do they do it?
We were now all flagging, so headed home via the local supermarket where we picked up some gyoza for dinner. We were really really flagging when we got home, so had an early dinner, then filled up the bath for a good Japanese bathtime. The bath here is fully automated, you tell it how deep you want the water and how hot, press a button and it does it for you. A panel in the kitchen then beeps and tells you when it is ready. All very well, but you need to put the plug in first - doh! Once we had figured that out we tried again and had a very pleasurable bathing experience. Tom then went to bed, but we stayed up. I really really struggled. I tried to write the blog, but instead of English typed some gibberish (all of which I had to delete this morning - even I couldn't understand it!). I went out on the balcony, ate more food etc etc, but the jet lag had me. I got to 9pm and then collapsed thankfully in bed.
Here's a short video of a couple of Shinkansen at Tokyo station:
http://youtu.be/ZckPFHuoxa8
No comments:
Post a Comment