Day 27

Didn't get to Nikko unfortunatly. People were chatting in the corridor outside my room again so I didn't actually get to sleep until 02:00 which is not a good thing when I need to be on a train at 06:00. So I turned my alarm off and decided I'd do something else today.

The plan was this....go to Ikebukuro and buy a Metro day pass. Visit Ueno Park including the Zoo, Ginza, Rainbow Bridge, Shibuya for a pint in a British/Irish bar and then back up to Tokyo Dome City before heading home for a Mos Burger dinner. It didn't quite turn out that way but it wasn't far off it.

Getting to Ueno via Ikebukuro was pretty much hassle free. Some guy stopped me asking for charity money so I was 200yen lighter before I'd even got in the park. It was for charity I hope and I got to practice a little Japanese. I told him I was from Igirisu and I was here for san gatsu (or however you spell it) and I was nana-sai desu. At the very least there was one benefit from giving to charity ^_~ Then in to the park where I watched a few street performers doing magic and playing music and some odd guys with big tall hats doing a rice cooking skit of some kind. Crazy Japanese at it's best.

The zoo itself was good. Not a lot different from any other zoo. Some parts made me sad as the animals clearly looked unhappy or to be in enclosures that were clearly too small for them. i couldn't even bear to look at the polar bears because they just shouldn't have been there :( But there were animals that looked happy enough and some had fantastic places to live. I didn't see much about conservation in the place but then it could have been stamped everywhere in Japanese but I just couldn't read the kanji. Best thing about the place was the 600yen price tag. Bargain I say. I spent a good 2 hours in there so for the equivalent of £4, I was very happy. A lot of the people in there were annoying though. Some Japanese woman kept banging on the glass of the Tiger pen and some American guy kept saying to her "NO! You can't do that" and she would bang again and he would shout again. She went off to bang something else eventually I'm sure.

Here's a couple of video's I filmed at the zoo.







I'm not going to post all my pictures of the zoo because it'll take all night so I'll just select my favourite 5. You can check my Facebook page for more.

After the zoo I decided as I was only a couple of stops away I'd pop over to Asakusa and see the market. It's the same crap as always and I found the same mug and keychain that I saw last time but decided not to buy. I'll definitely go back to get them one day but there's no rush, as I proved today. Picked up a green tea azuki bun thing as I was feeling hungry. Om nom nom :) Forgot to take a picture though, my apologies. It just looked like a green blog anyway.

Back on the train and this time to Ginza. By the time I got there I'd forgotten what I'd gone there for so I decided search for the Kubuki Theatre for future reference. It was pretty easy to find as it turns out so I'd been there and wandered back within 15 minutes. Last time I was in Ginza was two years ago with Cindy. We'd gone to the Sony Building, had lunch and then visited the Imperial Gardens. I didn't fancy that today as it was starting to get cold but I did remember seeing an HMV when we had lunch that one time. Would you believe I managed to find my way back there and to the Wendy's across the street? This is the girl here who gets lost in Shinjuku every time she goes there. I of course celebrated my successful finding of HMV by buying the NEWS CD that I talked about before. I went for the slightly more expensive DVD version which came with...dun dun duuuuunnn....a DVD. It's a 30 minute DVD from the NEW Winter Party Diamond concert in Tokyo Dome. Yes, I've already watched it. I must say, weeeek is by far their best single. Just knocks spots off everything else. And seriously? Why is Shige in NEWS? Other than having the best hair he's crap. He sings badly, dances horrifically and doesn't even have the best face. Yamapi can do the rapping stuff and (with a little help from mr recording studio to "tune" him up a little) can do the lower range parts too. I mean, you have Yamapi who's just cool and handsome, Tegoshi who clearly has the best voice, Masuda who's the best dancer, great singer and has the world's best smile, Koyama (who might be taking Yamapi's place as my fav) is a great dancer, awesome MC and kind of a cute singer, and Ryo who's not the best singer or dancer but he's handsome and he has that dorky bad boy thing going on which isn't that easy to do. And Shige. He has great hair most of the time. It ain't enough boy! Grr!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaanyway, got carried away then. So HMV and I depart Ginza and head on down to Tokyo Dome. I had a look in the Baseball shop and nearly bought a shirt but I didn't want to blow all my money so I left it for another day. One day, a #24 Takehashi shirt will me mine. Oh yes, it will be mine. But more important than baseball, the Thunder Dolphin! We'd seen it when we saw the baseball game a few weeks back but it wasn't working at that time. I had to go back because it just looked like the most awesome roller coaster. It cost me 1000yen to ride the thing but it was worth it. Defo have to do that again. The thing goes through walls and though the ferris wheel for crying out loud! Loved it. Spotted a British pub close by but was seriously hungry by this point and didn't fancy finding out the only meat free thing they sell is beer so grabbed the next metro home where I enjoyed bento, potato croquettes and grape fanta (damn you Daniel-san) from the supa.

Tomorrow I will be going to Odaiba with Rosanna (who's taking us to a Honey and Clover cafe^^ Squee!) and Jonna for the Hawaiian festival they're having over there. We'll probably ride the ferris wheel too cos you know, it's Odaiba.

Time to watch some gossip girl now though.
You know you love me...xoxo
Laura