Japan - Day 10

After last night's failed attempt we headed straight to Shibuya this morning. For my fellow 'Amazing Race' fans, this is the place they went to where they were asked to find the Hachiko Statue. So our first order of business was to find the statue. Easy peasy, it was right outside the handily labelled 'Hachiko Exit' of the station. Then it was time to be amazed by all the video screens and the crazy pedestrian crossings where a million (slight exagerration) people cross at once.

Even though I usually read books instead of magazines, it's quite the opposite when I'm on holiday. Having run out of any English magazines a few days before I was quite keen to head to Tower Records, which I had heard has the largest and cheapest selection of English language magazines in the city. While there we had a great time wandering around on the J-Pop floor listening to all the fun Japanese songs.

After grabbing some lunch we decided to go and get a view of the Imperial Palace, and then head back to the gardens we got rained on in the other day. We got the typical tourist photo of the Palace peeking out behind the trees, and walked around the outside to get to the gardens. Just as we were almost there, while we were talking about getting a drink and sitting somewhere pretty once we got inside, we saw a guard turning some other tourists away. We rushed over to the sign at the entrance and were disappointed to see that it's closed on Fridays (& Mondays). Boo hoo hoo! Unsure of what to do with ourselves now we sadly went back to the hotel.

Just as we were almost back at the hotel I realised I'd walked past the vending machine with the drink I wanted, so I decided to go back while Shanon continued on inside. While I was wandering down the street I managed to meet a local politician. Every day we've been in this neighbourhood there have been cars and vans driving around with loudspeakers on top of them. There's always a person with a sash on, and a handful of other people with fluro colored jackets on. One of the jacket-wearers is continuously talking into a microphone and the rest are waving at people on the street. It's local election time, and I guess that is how they promote themselves. Sitting in a car all day seems dead boring to me. We can hear them from when we wake up in the morning until well after dark. Anyway, this guy and his green fluro-jacketed friends were walking down the street introducing themselves to the local shopkeepers when I came across them. He took time out to smile and bow at me. I hope he won.

We spent sunset in a park near our hotel, and then walked to Ginza. Ginza is the snobby area where you go shopping if you're loaded. It was cool going at night and checking out all the fancy buildings and bright lights, but it did take us a lot longer than I'd imagined. It took us 2 hours to get there and back, by which time we were starving.