neighborhood hopping

Today we went to the Tokyo Metropolitan Photography Museum only to be shooed away by the 'missing' large permanent collection which has been replaced by rotating exhibitions that come with a hefty price tag. So sad! We were really looking forward to the photos. Instead, we bought little toy cameras at the museum shop and set off taking fun photos!!

We pottered around a few neighborhoods that we'd not been to yet - looking for the cool youth fashion and trendy cafe's. We didn't really find them, but seemed to find the neighborhood where the expats live! They were all over in suits and the like. If I didn't pay attention to the language difference I could have easily been in NYC.

Then off to find a tshirt shop in Ueno. No such luck, but we did find a huge market that kept us occupied for most of the afternoon. It was a black market during WWII, but now is pretty legit - just still crammed full of stuff. A peak down one of the lanes reminded me of India. Wires stretching from house to house, people everywhere, smells, random street stalls, etc.

Next stop.. the large Muji we'd run into a day before but were too tired to stop in. I spent ages in there. It was massive! I also bought way too much stuff but could have bought a ton more if we didn't have such small bags to take back to India!

Loaded down with packages, we headed back to the hotel to dump our stuff and rejuvenate for a few minutes before heading out into the night time throngs of humanity. Again we decided to go to a new area - Roppongi. It is supposedly the nightlife (and foreigner) area. First we went to an excellent pizzaria (paul had been craving pizza and that seems to be the one chain that hasn't made it to Japan - not one pizza chain anywhere!). Stuffed full of food, we headed to the bars. The first few we wanted to go into had hefty cover charges - a beatles bar that has had the same band playing for 20 years would have cost about 40 USD for us to just sit down then you had to buy drinks, another one was around 30 USD for another 'cover band' type place. We got lured into an Australian pub that was dead empty, but interesting to see and free to get in!

Next stop.. the best bar in Asia says Time magazine. Man.. we should have gone there first - they were having a screening of a cult Japanese classic horror film!! Still a hefty charge to get in, but would have been so interesting.

Pooped from trying to bar hop, we headed back to Shibuya on the still packed trains enjoying watching the drunken salarymen!

Not an eventful day as far as site seeing goes, but a great day like we like.. just doodling around checking out the neighborhoods.