A rainy day trip to the Tokyo guitar street at Ochanomizu
The forecast said it might rain, briefly.
Instead it rained a lot, constantly, from 7am until so far, around 4pm.
This is not a huge issue unless you like walking around, and then the issue is not getting wet, it is becoming blind due to umbrella panic.
Such is the desire to have the most annoying umbrella, some people now carry 2, one to keep themselves damp with and the other to poke the eyes out of passers by.
First up, I had to buy my bullet train ticket for tomorrow. I noted down the date, time, train number, start and destination station, and took this to the girl at the counter.
She had all that worked out in about 2 seconds, and showed me the price on the calculator screen which is what I expected. But then the annoying up sell started, and she persisted for 10 minutes to convince me to buy some sort of pass, green car, nozomi fast train, lunch vouchers and all kinds of other things.
I just kept pointing at the piece of paper on which I had already filled out exactly what I wanted. Eventually I was allowed to buy that.
Once I saw the rain, there was only one option, go guitar shopping. Since I have no umbrella, I get to go guitar shopping whilst looking like a drowned rat, then get water all over their precious instruments.
As it turns out, guitar street is about 100 metres from Akihabara, so I walked there and back in the rain, splashing in puddles.
I purchased 8 guitars, and have already sold 7 to Australians, my personal dealer at BIG BOSS is arranging shipping and payment, I am just the agent. Trip paid for itself.
After celebrating by having some dried banana chips at the Family Mart, it was time to splash my way back to the hotel and do a load of washing.
This is the second most fearful thing in my life after umbrella blindness. Most times I go on trips I shrink my clothes to the point of throw them in the bin.
My new tactic, smaller loads, and dont fully dry them in the dryer.
So right now my tiny hotel room is full of wet clothes, with the heater on full to complete the drying, whilst I sit here sweating wearing only a damp wash cloth.
Not many photos due to rain!
I had to wait at this crossing for what seemed like an hour, so I looked around and saw a huge hobby store, the top floors are for military clothing.
First you make your plastic tank and battleship, then you dress up and make noises whilst you play with it.
Its not quite 10am, so hordes of men, and only men, are lined up for hundreds of metres to play Pachinko.
A vending machine selling my drink of choice! I celebrated, but then had to carry the can for hours until I could find a recycling point that took cans and not just PET bottles.
I am a responsible environmentalist.
Now I am inside the ESP custom shop. This particular guitar has the pickup inside the wood. I am surprised I have never seen that before.
The magnetic pole pieces are just screws into the wood.
They had a heap of their ridiculous guitars on show in the gallery, I almost couldnt believe my eyes when it said 75,000. I thought thats only about $850! But then I saw the 75,000 was the USD price, not the yen price.
BIG BOSS. They love me here.
Still raining. Locals were amused that I stood dripping in the rain to take a photo of a construction site.
Possibly the worlds most pathetic christmas tree.
My lunch was excellent. I was going to have a sandwich, but this deal for $10 for Korean Bi Bim Bap was too good to pass up.
You get a lot of good quality food for your money.
Korean food seems to be a lot more popular in Japan than I remember.
This is a giant version of one of the floral tributes on a pole people are running around temples carrying. And I mean running, they charge around chanting with them.
And finally, heres my washing machine station. Now trying on damp pants to see how much they have shrunk.
Tomato ramen in Shinjuku
Tomorrow I go to Nagoya.
Before then, I go to Shinjuku. It was raining, but when I got there, it had stopped raining, at least for a while.
Much like Shibuya, not much had changed. Somehow I found myself inside guitar stores again, looking at Strandberg Bodens I cannot afford. This may well be the most specific thing I have ever typed, because no one that will ever read this will know what a Strandberg Boden is.
Next I headed over the road to Kubikikokikochokicokochokiko, and wandered around looking at posters of Thai ladyboys whilst African men tried to give me their business card.
It was here, in an impressive cinema complex, that I found a fantastic dinner.
They take tomato soup out of a can, boil it until its thick, then add stuff to it.
Mine had Gorgonzola, Chorizo, Ramen, Garlic bread and baby potatoes. So yeah, healthy!
The rain returned, so there was just enough time to dodge some umbrella spikes, get chased by Africans again, and head back to the train.
Its me, with Super Mario. There have not been many photos of me due to my hideous post illness appearance, where my nose looks like Rudolph (popular reindeer), nostrils bigger than their normal huge self.
Yeah, Shinjuku.
Yeah, Kabuki-Cho
Apparently, too many people walk into this massage parlour asking for the robot restaurant.
.
2 photos of me in one night.
This was my amazing dinner.
I hope they have outlets in Nagoya, I took this photo to remind me to look for it.
Star Wars hype is out of control. Every clothing brand has paid the fee to use it, I saw a Schick razor ad where you get millennium falcon with flashing lights on the stem of your razor, and then theres themed cakes like here.
Every convenience store has theme star wars everything.