Tokyo Rose by any Other Name.

I checked out of the capsule and made my way to Shinjuku station. Buddy Nori had recommended a Burger King, back in action after a 6-year hiatus. He admonished about the MegaBurger, but in my slightly hungover state, I settled for a Whopper. It was larger than I had remembered, but then I realized that for the last several years, I never ate anything other than Happy Meals or Burger King Kids' Meals. I only really want the toys, not the food. Much to my chagrin, there was NO Kids' Meal, it was upscaled for adults, who would go there only to eat! Hard to believe.

I wandered around Shinjuku after that and eventually discovered a Movie area with a large variety of UFO catch game centres. I had plenty of time to kill, so I popped in several 100￥ coins and won various and sundry items including this bizarre Ramen-eating Salaryman who had definitely felt the worse for wear.

Best find was a centre with 5 different Pinball games! I wasted some more time playing Congo, Guns & Roses, Dungeon Madness, Shadow and my favourite game of all time...Twilight Zone! Alas, each of these 20-30 year-old games had seen better days and a lot of the play had left their bumpers.

I finally met up with Liverpudlian Andy and we went to an all-you-can-stomach Indian Restaurant. I didn't have much room to eat after the Whopper, but I still put a few plates away. We walked it off by heading to the Government buildings with a free Observation Tower on the 45th floor. Nice views of Smoggy Tokyo!

Those crazy hazy days of autumn.








Very Blade Runner-esque, with a blimp soaring overhead.
















Nice little park with the changing of the leaves in full glory.























Full moon over Yoyogi Park.

We'd spent enough time in Shinjuku and made our way to Shibuya to meet up with Mark & Yuko. Andy recommended a place called Tasuichi where you can get Draft for 200￥ from 5-7 and only 300￥ after that. Needless to say we wasted several hours there getting wasted on cheap beer and cheap company.

The food was typical fare, but we decided against ordering this.













Swilling down the swill.
































Enjoying a pint at the pub. We met a couple of backpackers from Wales who were on a whirlwind worldwide tour. We invited them out for Karaoke and they loved it but had horrid voices! (Word of advice if you don't wish to piss me off. If you plan to sing a duet with me while I'm crooning Sinatra, be sure you actually know the song!)

Mark and I continued drinking all night and took an early 6:00 train home. Mark slept ALL day and I continued a walkabout in Shibuya, hunting for a Santa costume. I went to my NERD store and bought this cool model of Gappa















Finally in a bizarre small world event, I met the girlfriend of one of Stef's friends from the night before at the pub. The next day, I met her friend on the Subway platform in crowded Shibuya while on the way home...freaky!