Day 9 summary

Monday 9th November:
Quick trip back up to Asakusa for last minute souvenir and gift purchases from the markets. I concluded that melted plastic style cheese slices on top of crumbed fried pork is a really bad thing, especially with rice and egg in the same bowl!

Train ride out to Odaiba - on the driverless train - with the promise of a magificent experience at Palette Town and the Venus Fort shopping centre, which is meant to resemble Venice with the interior walls all painted like stone buildings and a cloud painted roof and numerous statues lining the walkways, not to mention the large water fountain in the middle of the centre. Big disappointment - I don't think we passed more than 100 people walking around the whole area. The most thriving part was the big Toyota show/play room. Odaiba is where the onsen with the fish which eat the dead skin off your feet are - I had planned to visit, but it seemed a little financially unviable in the end, just to stand in a puddle of hot water! Had it been slightly later in the day too, we would have seen the bridge all illuminated too, but since there was little to do to pass another couple of hours away in the region, we just came back to Ginza.

Walk through Ginza at night again marvelling at the lights everywhere, discovered some of the little boutique shops on the back streets including the most quaint little hand made chopstick shop. Stopped in at Matsuya's food court and got more fresh foods for dinner - rice, buns, chicken sticks, salad, soba.