Uni, view of Tokyo, Akihabara and H&M (04.11.08)

The white building is our hotel, the Shinjuku Washington Hotel (seen from the back)

Today we just went behind the hotel to the Bunka Women’s University, where they had some sort of open day. We were supposed to see a fashion show, but because of the queues, we skipped it. We did see some exhibitions of fashion, product design, photography and so on. Afterwards, we went to the other side of the hotel, where the government buildings are located. We went to the top floor (45) in one of the towers and had a look at the view. Tokyo is quite enormous, you could see the city forever in each direction. We took the elevator down, switched elevator, and took the elevator to the 32^nd floor where we had lunch. Japan is quite fascinating, because most restaurants have wax-copies on display for all their dishes, making it easy to see what the dish is like (especially when you don’t understand Japanese). This restaurant was quite special, as you picked a dish from the display, went to a ticket machine and punched in the number of dish you wanted, stuffed in enough coins to pay for the meal, and then you got a receipt, which you took to one of many counters where they in return for your ticket gave you your meal. Efficient.

After lunch, we went to Akihabara, the district to go for anime, manga, computer games etc. It was rather bizarre browsing the stores. Japanese people are weird. I won’t go further into detail. I refuse.
We split up in Akihabara, where parts of the group when to a giant toy store (including Hanne (and she later went to Harajuku)) and some went to the Ginza-district (including me). Some of the girls had managed to track down a H&M store (the only one in Japan), hoping to track down normalsize clothes and underwear and so on. I tagged along, and it was quite an interesting experience. First of all, H&M is located next to Prada, Calvin Klein and Armani in one of the more expensive shopping districts. Secondly, there were two bouncers letting people in and out of the store. Thirdly, there was a queue of people wanting to enter. Fourthly, the store was so full you could not turn around, and you just had to walk in a queue while looking at the clothes while walking past. Fifthly, they only had elegant clothes, and no ’everyday’ clothes. It was impossible to shop there, and it wasn’t like there was some special occasion, it was just normal. Very interesting. I, Anna and Iselin went back to the hotel whereas the other girls went back to Harajuku to do more shopping. We found a Victorian pub just next to the hotel, where we had dinner before going back to the hotel. My feet were dying, as seemed everyone else’s to be as well. I just relaxed and tried to prepare some more stuff for the blog while watching weird Japanese game shows. Hanne arrived later, and I went to bed real early, since we had to leave the hotel at 5.30am next morning to go to the fish markets :(