Japan - Day 9

Shinjuku

We had a very late start today and this caused today to be a little more restful. In saying that, that didn’t mean we didn’t stay out later and see a lot.

Today started by us all helping Steve decide what were doing for Hakone. Steve has been brilliant in planning and organising all the information for Hakone. The guided tour that we picked looks good and should make for a fantastic day.

After getting Hakone organised we decided it would be good to head into Shinjuku today to do some exploring. The first place we headed to was the Tokyo Government Building. We traveled up to the observatory deck which is 205m about sea level, and didn’t cost us anything. It had really good views of the ever stretching Tokyo. There was also a man playing live music, he was very good. The observatory also housed a cafe and gift shop. Lee had a coffee, which claims to be the hottest coffee he has ever had.

After the tower we walked our way across Shinjuku and went to Shinjuku Gyoen Gardens. The gardens were alright, personally thought they were creepy. The ticket to get in was interesting though, it had a clear strip of plastic and you could not see what was written on it until you shook the little magnetic peices on it. The gate ate the ticket though, so we couldn’t keep it. We had to rush out of the park early as the gates shut at 4, I am still unsure why these gardens were so special that they required admission as well as get locked up.

So after the garden, we went travelling to find the animation museum. The museum was hidden in some little street in the suburbs. How we found it I will never know. The museum was alright, Sarma and Anthony liked it. It should have been called the Gundam museum, because there was not much else in there. Anyway I did some cool drawings, and I suppose Anthony’s and Robs were ok too :p. We stayed at the museum until it closed and then headed back into the city.

We were going to head back towards Shinjuku but decided that we were a bit tired so we all headed home. Rob went straight back to the hotel for bed. While we tried this restaurant at the station, the prices looked alright and in the end we ordered there.The food was actually really nice, mine was a little bit chilli (I think dad might have liked it)