We left Melboure for Tokyo on the night of October 8 and arrived early on Saturday morning, October 9. It was a dull gey day with continuous rain.
After settling into our hotel, we wandered down to the area around Shinjuku Station. This station is very busy. It has ten railway lines and over 1milliom people pass through it every day. In the nearby area are four department stores and kilometres of subway with a plethora of shops, restaurants and cafes. Across the road from the West entrance to the station is the Yodobashi Camera store with its seven floors of electronics. it required a little exploration but I still have five more floors to go.
At night we went to have dinner with Yuki’s parents – Nariaki and Fumiyo, along with David and Yuki. They are very nice peole and we had a very pleasant evening. We are looking forwatd to seeing them again on Monday at the wedding. The restaurant was in a buiidling that we would probably call an ‘Academic Club’. Yukis father is a retired professor of mathematics and statistics at one of the National Japanese Universities. He had also spent some time teaching in the USA for a few years
The architecture of the building was a very grand replica of the Meiji period of the 1890’s when Japan first opened up to the West and buildings were designed as a cross between Japanese and Western styles. It had some very impressive wood panelling and high ceilings. We had a superb four course dinner wih some nice red wine.
On Sunday morning we went back to do some shopping at one of the department stores. We also found another large electronics store – Bic Camera which just seemed to have a number of things that were essential for us to buy. i am now the owner of a solar charger for my Iphone.
We were invited, in the afternoon, to go to a picnic in the park with a group of David’s friends from his days at Chiba Universtiy in Tokyo. Because it was still raining, this was transferred to his friend Shifa’s house. She is from Jordan, studied architecture, and is now the wife of the Jordanian Ambassador to Japan. We had a beautiful Jordanian lunch at their residence with ten, or so, of David’s friends.
At Shifa’s home
