17000 steps in total.

No wonder my feet were tired!

Sunday afternoon we saw the Ghibli Animation Museum. The building was sort of Gaudi meets steampunk with Hundwasser overtones.

Photos are not permitted inside but it was quite interesting. The stories being depicted were not something I remember seeing but from the number of Japanese people singing along with the music in the shop they must be very popular. It was sort of museum exhibition with some rooms set up as the designers were working- with clutter of all sorts of things used for inspiration; part display of artwork and methods from many animations; description of how they were made and a theatre which ran one of their animations. Very sweet. The place had a bit of a feel of Alice in Wonderland down the rabbit hole. Caught the bus back to the station, being careful to stay in line and not upset the bus police and then a train to central Shinjuku.

We had a booking in the evening for the Robot Restaurant but had time in the meantime for a visit to the Samurai Museum. It was great and our guide informative (although a little hard to understand). Complete with demonstration of fighting.

Very interesting.

And then ...

Off we went to the Robot Restaurant!

Loud and garish but very entertaining. The performers were extremely enthusiastic. we furthered Phillip’s culinary experience with a bento box.

You’d think that our night was done after this but we went to the other side of the station in search of Memory Lane aka Piss Alley - a very narrow street full of very tiny bars with yakitori grills (therefore smoky). The name comes from post ww2 when there were no toilet facilities and the street was very popular and a lot more shady than now. THEN we went back to our hotel on the train.