Pokemon Center「ポケモンセンター」, Shinjuku「新宿」 and Akihabara「秋葉原」.

Once again up bright and early for a day of exploring and sight-seeing in the vast cityscape of Tokyo.

Today's destination is one where all normal 21-year olds head to when in Japan: the Pokemon Center.

Located on the 2nd floor of the Shiodome Building in Shinjuku (though you have to get off at Hamamatsucho station 「浜松町駅」rather than the Shinjuku terminus), the Pokemon Center, as you'd expect it to be, is filled to the brim with all things Pokemon, and of course, children.

It's not too difficult to find. Once you step off the train, follow any parent holding onto a child dressed up in something Pokemon-related (Pikachu visors are currently the trend for kids to wear at the moment) until you reach the store itself.

Entering the store, you immediately realise several things:

1. The cute Pokemon statue right on front of you.
2. The legendary Pokemon floating above your head.
3. Charizard hovering in the corner to your right. And...
   
4. That you are the only person over the age of twelve who has entered the store without children of your own.

In Australia you'd be laughed at and teased. In Japan you're just another person in another store, dedicated to yet another fad.

After scrutinising practically every item in the store, we made a selection of the things we wanted, bought them and moved out before the hordes of children beat us to the cashiers.


From Pokemon-land we made our way back to Shinjuku. Lunch is required, so we stop off at some sub-subterranean noodle bar called Hanamaru. Ordering here is... different. Kind of like those cafeteria-style systems you see on bad American high-school shows. You grab a tray, choose a couple of pieces of tempura, grab a drink from the mini-fridge if you feel like one (else water is free) and move along to the ordering window and tell the waiter which kind of udon noodles you want and what you want with it (for those that don't speak Japanese, you can just point to make your selection) and choose a size (small: 小, medium: 中, large: 大).

The noodles will be handed to you almost instantly, so move along to the cashier to pay for your food. After accounts have been settled, find a table and chow down. It's a quick, easy and inexpensive way to eat in Tokyo, and is very filling.

From Hanamaru we began our hunt for another of Tokyo's temples called Hanazono-shrine 「花園神社」. It was pretty enough, even though it lacked a garden, but I suppose being different is what makes things interesting.

It's funny how the Japanese have all these high-rises, skyscrapers and mega-malls, and then smack-bang in the middle of them all is a shrine.

As per usual, we collected our stamp (each temple has it's own stamp) in our special book, though this one cost us 300yen. So far, they'd all been free, but when the monk handed the stamp back to us we realised why they charge for it. Hand-written, with ink and brush, the name of the temple written in calligraphic style. Nice.

It sure beat the other stamps we'd received so far, which had just been dipped in red ink (always red for some reason) and pressed onto a page in our book.

With calligraphy in hand, we got on the train back to Akihabara, where the perpetual smog had dissipated enough to be able to see the evening sky. I like one of the shots Ben took, of the soft colours of the sky contrasting with the stark, defined outline of a crane on top of a building.

In Akihabara we found a cool sword shop, that sells not only Japanese-style swords, but Western swords and armour, as well as daggers, shuriken (throwing stars), nun-chukas and other weapons. The items in the store were ornamental, so all the blades were blunt, but they were still cool to handle.

These ones were among the cooler ones we'd seen so far-- and some of the cheapest! As soon as we got home, I e-mailed Australian customs to double-check if it is a-ok to bring ornamental swords back home, so hopefully we'll have an answer before too long and will be able to commence buying some blades!