Friday, January 13, 2024

• Friday the 13th!

• Headed into Shibuya to do some shopping, starting with 109. Found some very fashionable accessories and made friends with people at the Punyus store.

• Decided we wanted to try a steak lunch, found a cool place that looked straight out of the outback, complete with mounted bull’s head and all wooden décor. Food was sizzling hot, absolutely delicious, and came with a wonderful variety of sauces to try. Very enjoyable!

• Stopped at what we thought was a cafe for a morning coffee and to plan the rest of the day – turns out it wasn’t actually a cafe, but instead a teleworking business. After playing duelling Google Translate with the nice lady working the counter, we finally worked out what was going on, paid for 30 minutes of time, and ducked next door to a kombini for some drinks and snacks to enjoy.

• Next on the agenda was a visit to the Toukon Shop – NJPW’s physical merch store. After wondering around, we found it but discovered it was closed. Luckily, MBW realised it was closed due to moving to a different location in the area, so we were able to follow the maps taped to the doors to find their new location.

• With a much lighter wallet and much fuller backpack, we headed on to our final planned activity of the day – a dinner cruise around Tokyo Bay. Our departure point was right near the Tokyo Skytree, so we started heading in that direction…
• Unfortunately, we found our first bout of bad weather all trip! As the skies grew darker, it got much colder and started to rain. We ducked into an izakaya to wait out the worst of it while keeping an eye on the clock for our departure time.

• After some delicious snacks and a couple of revitalising beers each, we continued on our way. We stopped at another kombini to get a couple of travel umbrellas – we’d actually brought some with us from home, but two weeks of perfect weather means we’d left them in the hotel room.
• Luckily, the rain quickly stopped, being replaced with a beautiful light snow. It made for a pretty magical walk through the mostly deserted streets of Tokyo.

• Then – disaster! The snow got harder, the temperature got colder, and a vicious breeze started to blow. It got so intense that we started to fear that the cruise itself would be cancelled. Getting a little lost close to the docks didn’t help – we could see where we needed to be, but couldn’t find anywhere to cut through the block between us and the docks.
• Getting increasingly frustrated and worried, and looking for a sign whether we should press on our call it quits before we got sick, we got our sign – a rouge traffic cone broke off from its (fixed) base in the high winds and went rocketing down the street right at us. It was moving so quickly we didn’t have time to react before it smacked MBW in the shins, drawing blood through her jeans 😤

• Pictured above – the culprit.
• We took that as our sign to throw in the towel, find somewhere to get warm and dry, and make it back to the hotel in once piece. Unfortunately, we could not find an active taxi to save our lives, despite seeing dozens of them only fifteen minutes earlier. The snow continued to fall….

• One silver lining of the outing – we found a few places to get some shots of the Skytree all lit up.

• We also found one of the famous vending machines selling bottles of broth, complete with entire fish.

• Finally, we gave up on the taxi and found somewhere to stop for dinner (and to warm up/wait out the snow). We found a sukiyaki restaurant we probably wouldn’t have normally picked (as we’ve had sukiyaki on previous trips and didn’t think it was amazing), but… it was amazing! Turns out it’s the perfect meal when you’re looking for something warming!

• Absolutely delectable!
• Warm and with full bellies, we emerged to find the snow had almost entirely stopped, so we were able to train back to the hotel, using the now-slightly-opened Sakura Stage building as a shortcut.

• Finally home, although the long day, bad weather and Friday the 13th vibes made our hotel feel a little more sinister than usual…