DAY 4

All excited about going to a traditonal museum today, read about it in Time Out guide; Idemitsu Museum in Hibiya. Well it wasn't to be. After searching for a bit, I gave up and crossed the road to the Imperial Palace. What can I say, the pine trees were all amazing to look at, but they were not taking visitors. Didn't matter, there is a giant moat around the palace grounds, full of whale sized carp. The walls are a sight to behold, all stone and gigantic. I revelled in a trance set to Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, playing on my I-pod, and took some photos of the number plates on trees along the avenue. Even the trees are accounted for. Then I made an attempt to draw the complex roofing system on one of the buildings. I walked a lot, and my shoes got very scuffed on the gravel. Both yesterday and today I walked on gravel paths, which seem popular in garden areas, and noticed that the edge of the path is paved and much easier to walk on.
The path of least resistance.
Anyway, on my way home I finally had time to pop into one of the Pachinko parlours up the road, there are a few...MATE! I couldn't hear my I-pod for all the noise in there, I am not kidding! And it was packed with people playing! And people were SMOKING INSIDE the building! It was supersonic hell, but the machines, with the layers of plastic, and video screens and sound and many silver balls, times 1,000...I saw one guy playing two at once, with both hands going! I saw another guy with a calculator! WTF! I just couldn't believe it, and there was another place a few meters down the road with the same set up. MANICMAYHEMMADNESS.
Then I walked past this place I had seen and presumed was a hotel with it's bright mirrored lobby and reception, but it wasn't a hotel, it was a giant karaoke place! I could hear the various singers/caterwauling through the doors of their booths! People were arriving in droves, and there is another one, just the same, across the road.
Had some wicked nosh from the supermarket, came home, cracked a beer and turned on the telly to find Sumo wrestling. Can I be more happy?