Day 4: Joe Sixpack day.

Yesterday (Monday), all the museums were closed, so I decided to just strike out in a random direction. I heard Shibuya had some nice gardens so I went there, but those were closed too.

So, I decided to play Joe Sixpack for the day and headed to Tokyo Tower. I saw the trick art gallery, which was full of illusions but quite small, and had a Mona Lisa whose eyes followed you around.

There was also a mostly-deserted video arcade spanning two floors, and tons of booths with touristy stuff for sale; I got some junk there to bring home.

And, the tower was, well, the tower. I've been up in lots of towers: the Space Needle, the CN tower... Surprisingly, this was a lot less crowded than the CN tower. I had my new monocular so I didn't need the 100-yen-per-peek binoculars. I saw lots of rooftop football courts.

Then, after getting a Big Mac, I wandered my way to Roppongi, where all the foreigners hang out and go clubbing. The women were handing out flyers and the men were extolling the virtues of their particular gentlemen's clubs. There were lots of Italian eateries out there, and bakeries, and shopping centers.

The good news is, I got a genuine foot massage for 4500 yen. The bad news is, I got it from a dude. The good news is, one of the girls talked to me for most of the time, and the dude did a pretty good job. The bad news is, I think the girl was only being nice to me and stroking my ego so she could upsell the full-body massage. I wasn't quite prepared to spring for that, but I kind of regretted it this morning when I realized that my knees and thighs were still really tight.

And then, when I got back to Ikebukuro, I saw a man with albinism walking with his Japanese friend. I got my picture with him, and another with his friend, and gave him my first name card. We talked in alternating English and Japanese, and I told him about NOAH. It turns out he was Japanese too, but I didn't know it until I asked where he was from. He goes to the university in this area, and his sister has albinism too.

well, that's it for now. It's raining but I'm going to Ueno anyway.

(no subject)

( me in Hama Rikyu Garden yesterday )

I was gonna go to Kamakura to see the Daibutsu. But too much else to do. Gotta go back to Ueno to see the science museum. And I gotta do laundry.

It rained. I got very very wet.