Day 04 - Monday 30th July

Today we thought we'd go somewhere different for breakfast - however most places near the hotel were closed or unimpressive. So we went to the hotel restaurant again because we knew we'd get a good breakfast there.

After breakfast, we went to the nearby department store. I didn't stay long - leaving Suzy to shop in peace while I went back to the hotel to catch up on my blog.

For lunch, we went to a cafe near our hotel. The decor and food resembled the Costa coffee shops that we often go to in London. The tables here were very small - only about 20cm square. Also, Costa has a wider choice and better food.

We went to the Airport Limousine to ask about our trip to Narita airport next Monday morning - primarily because we needed to know how much time to allow in peak hour traffic.

Next we went to the Japan Rail (JR) information office to activate the 7-day Japan Rail Pass tickets that we bought in Australia. This would let us use their trains today and for the travel to and from Takayama and Kyoto over the next six days. We also booked our seats on the trains for tomorrow.

It was a little easier this time to find the correct line and platform. After only a few minutes, a train arrived to take us from Shinjuku to Akihabara on the Sobu line where we changed to the Yamanote line to go one more station to Okachimachi station.

The plan was to visit the Ameyoko shopping area that consists of narrow lanes with small stores selling clothes, food, trinkets, etc.

After walking down open-air alley ways, we decided to explore the indoor stalls. This turned out to be a good idea because it was air-conditioned and so we could escape the heat and humidity.

Even so, we were getting tired after less than 30 minutes. By this time we'd reached the next JR railway station, Ueno. So we caught the train back to Akibahara.

Here we planned to visit "Electric Street" which is an area that has shop after shop selling electronic and electrical goods - every kind of gadget and accessories you could imagine.

Most of the shops look quite small but when you go inside they are bigger than they first appeared and often consist of four or five levels.

We caught the train from Akibahara back to Shinjuku. It was interesting to note that the platform has painted lines and arrows to indicate where to queue to get on at each door on the train and where to allow for people getting off the train.

Back in our hotel, Suzy managed to contact Nicky and Amelia in London using FaceTime on her MacBook Air.

For dinner, Suzy wanted to go to a tempura restaurant in Shinjuku that had good reviews on Trip Advisor. She plotted out a route to the restaurant in Google Maps and we set off at about 6:30pm hoping that we would be able to find it.

The restaurant is in a narrow street on the eastern side of Shinjuku station. This area has bright lights, busy shops, interesting restaurants and crowds of people. It is clearly the place to go for young people looking for a good night out.

We managed to find the restaurant without any trouble. It's a small restaurant with narrow benches for the customers facing the chefs who cook the meals. We were the only westerners there.

Although they handed us menus in English, we were unsure how big the dishes were and how many we would need. They had set menus but we were put off these because one of the courses was eel.

When we asked the waiter for clarification, he didn't understand us and got someone else to help. She knew a few English words but was out of her depth. She found someone else who spoke excellent English. She convinced us to go for the set menu and agreed to substitute the eel for something else.

We'd never tried sake before and we decided tonight was going to be the night. Since we didn't know if we would like it, we just ordered one to share between us - thinking that we could switch to wine later. It turned out that we liked it and we ended up ordering another serve later in the meal.

It was fascinating watching the chef cook our food in front of us. While waiting for our food, we watched the other diners with their meals so we could learn the proper etiquette.

The meal was delicious but I was still hungry and so I ordered two more pieces of fish. At least I thought I did. I'm not sure if the waitress understood but the cook seemed to understand because he said "fish" and I indicated two. After a while no fish had arrived and the chef wandered off. We had to find the waitress who spoke good English to sort it out.

Interestingly, she suggested two other types of fish including flathead. When the chef showed us the two types of fish, they were only about 5cm long. I told the waitress that in Australia flathead are "this big", she laughed.

It was a delicious meal and an adventure.