Saturday was fun!

We started out in Shinjuku because Chris wanted to look at used camera equipment. We had kaiten (conveyor-belt) sushi for lunch there. The stools were packed together surrounding two sushi chefs in the center of the conveyor belt and counter where we all sat and grabbed plates as they went around. It is hard to eat slowly there – everything looks delicious and just flies just in front of you. Also, you can see when they’ve made something new and usually you want to try it. The prices are different based on the colour of the plate and they have a chart on the wall that tells you how much each different colour plate is. When you’re done the waitress squeezes over and counts up your plates for you.

Then we walked to Shibuya. We stopped at different branches of a shoe store (named ABC Mart, no joke) because I brought the wrong shoes with me. We were packing and cleaning like crazy the last few days before we left and I forgot to get my boots from the shoe guys who were fixing the heels. So I ended up going to Tokyo in a pair of very old sneakers that Marisa gave to me years ago – she says that she originally bought them in 2004 at the old Don Mills mall. So I replaced them with new prettier sneakers with brightly coloured laces because I’ve decided that I can have sparkly multi-coloured laces while travelling.

Over the Shibuya scramble crossing, which must surely be one of the busies intersections in the world, is a Starbucks which we sat in to overlook the chaos. We didn’t take a picture, but this Google images link will show you what we saw: http://goo.gl/yJSgw.

Hiro and Joanne met us at Hachiko near Shibuya Station. Hachiko is a statue of a dog who has a very touching story associated with him about waiting for his master every day and then continuing to wait everyday after his master died – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hachiko. He’s a famous meeting place and I really wanted to meet at him, so they agreed. It turned out that was not the best idea since everyone in all of Tokyo wants to meet at Hachiko on Saturday nights. (Also I was late and had to stand on top of a bench to try to spot them.)

We were attending a charity event at a bar called The Pink Cow to support rebuilding after the Tohoku earthquake. We had a great time and met a lot of very nice people. There was a man named Norman who cooks and sells Jamaican food out of his house for a living. There was Shawna who organized the event. There was Shawna’s boyfriend Takeshi who, very strangely, went to grade school and high school with Chris and has worked as an artist for Marvel Comics. There was a silent auction to raise money and he donated an awesome drawing of Spiderman helping old ladies make rice balls. I REALLY liked it, but the starting bid was a little beyond my price range. That’s pretty much it other than a lot of beer drinking and chatting. It was a terrific day.