Day 25

I have to say, today was probably my best day in Japan so far and all I did was walk. I had a late start mostly because I was being lazy and decided to sleep late and then I couldn't decide whether to go out or stay in or whether to do laundry or clean or where I'd go if I did go out. In the end I rearrange my room a little bit, did a little cleaning and went out anyway.

The destination of choice was....Warabi! That's right, despite toying with the idea of Ikebukuro I figured that Warabi was good enough. Plus I really wanted to go to Don Quixote and I didn't know if there even was one in Ikebukuro (there's actually 2 as it turns out). So off I went in search of the crazy shop of doom in a direction I'd never headed before.

Finding the place was pretty simple as it turns out. I nearly gave up for about 30 seconds because I got the buildings confused but then I noticed the place I was actually looking for and headed inside. I was probably in there about an hour taking pictures of costumes and NEWS Happy Bathday stuff. Had a wander through the food section and found strawberry KitKat. Bought it of course. Also spent a while looking at hair stuff. I'm tempted to buy a curling iron. It would be nice to do something different with my hair but do I really want to blow 4000yen on something I can only use for the next 2 months. I could bring it home but it probably wouldn't work properly even with a power converter. But then if I wait til I'm home I'll be back at work and I'll never have the opportunity to do anything interesting with my hair so maybe I should buy something after all. I'm going to Ikebukuro tomorrow I think so maybe I will buy one.

Up until this point I was having a reasonably nice day but it was after I left that things got great. So I'm outside the shop and I look in the direction of the guesthouse, plug in my ipod, turn around and walk in the opposite direction. I believed that road would eventually take me to a river but I had no idea how far it actually was. So I walked listening to Metro Station, Flo Rider and all the other crap that came on the ipod until eventually I came to water. I'm so sick of the people and the buildings and ugliness of Tokyo so it was nice to be at this place. But wait, this isn't the river I wanted. I look up and I see a far bigger bridge which I'm pretty sure is the destination I was searching for.

(I've bookmarked this spot as a future picnic and a book day out)

I make it to the bridge and it was like reaching paradise. Water, grass, open space, dogs running about, quietness and in the distance a horizon of mountains. After spending the last 3 weeks looking at concrete this most definitely was heaven to me. So I wandered along the rivers edge, soaking up the sun and watching the kids play baseball, the old men walking their dogs and the rich folks water skiing. It was just so pleasant, I'm going to definitely spend more time here when I can. The good thing is I can walk there in around an hour or I can get the train for free. No excuse not to go really. Beats any park I've been to so far.

So I'm in heaven...but there was still more to come. When I first reached the river I'd stopped and looked at the view of the mountains in the distance. It was great to see something other than sky scrapers. There's only 1 tall building in Swansea, maybe one and a half if you count the BT tower, so having all these things towering around you all day long is very claustrophobic for me and thus seeing the mountains all that distance away was like being free again. Occasionally I would turn and look back to see the mountains again, but wait, what's that? No, it couldn't be. Oh yes it is....it's Fuji-san! Yeah! With snow and shit! YEAH! Ok, so maybe it wasn't Fuji but I'm about 95% sure it was. I couldn't see the top due to a bit of cloud that was hanging over it and refused to move despite my pleas. But wow, I'd been thinking on the way there that I might make it a goal of Golden Week to see Mount Fuji WITH snow. Won't be all that long until the snow melts and I really wanted to see it snow topped.

(Click on the picture for a better look cos it just looks like a cloud when the picture is this small)

And then I started my long trek home. I think it took twice as long to get back as it did to get there in the first place. Don't know how, or why, but it did even though I walked back parallel to the train tracks. Called in the supa when I got to Warabi and bought myself what turned out to be the best instant noodles I've ever eaten (om nom nom), a bottle of pepsi nex which came with a free coaster and a soda flavoured ice lolly with a monkey on it.

Honestly, fabulous day :)