Last Day

It’s my last day in  Japan and I am pleased to report that I am typing in the cafe in front of The Tobacco and Salt Museum. The museum has been on my list of things to do since I got here and while I’m glad I made it, I have once again been reminded that the things I plan to do are rarely the most interesting ones. It’s the events that occur on the margins that hold my interest most often.

Case in point is this visit to the Salt and Tobacco Museum. The museum itself was not especially interesting, mainly because it’s almost entirely in Japanese. On the other hand, coming out of the museum, I was presented with this cafe, which is called “C’est Bon Plage” and is entirely pink. C’est bon plage, as I understand it, means “it is a good beach”. There is no beach that I can see and no good reason for the place to be pink, but Japan’s a bit like that.

Another problem with visiting Japan is that the list of things you intended to do invariably contains a number of items that have not been crossed off by the end of your stay. I didn’t make it to Harajuku on Sunday afternoon as I planned and I didn’t get to the Science Museum. On the other hand, the reasons for not crossing off the items are often more interesting than the items themselves.

Yesterday we were invited to a lunch in Ginza with Shun and Ami (the newlyweds) along with Akino’s parents and her brother Noriki. Hence the Sunday afternoon and Harajuku didn’t happen. Instead we got to eat at a chinese gyoza restaurant of some renown. We arrived there to be greeted by an enormous queue that stretched down two flights of stairs and into the street. Ami had already arrived and secured our table, so we didn’t have to queue up. The food was delicious.

Afterward we went to an izakaya with some of Shun’s friends that had come over from Australia. The izakaya was famous for selling 180 yen beer. Now you might not think that 180 yen is cheap for a glass of beer (it’s about AUD$2.40) but let me assure you that it’s cheap in Tokyo. We had a great time and all got our moneys worth out of the beer!

Today, for our last day, we’ve come to Shibuya. Shibuya is one of the busiest places in Tokyo and let me assure you that’s saying quite a lot. The station is famous for having the statue of Hachiko at one of the entrances. Hachiko is a dog that used to meet his master every day at the station. When his master died, Hachiko continued to come to the same station entrance every day for several years afterward. The residents around Shibuya would greet him and feed him and when he finally passed on to join the great dog kennel in the sky, they erected a statue in his honour.

It’s a bit of a sad story, but the worst is yet to come. Apparently there is a Hollywood movie in the making, telling the story of Hachiko as only Americans can and starring … wait for it … Richard Gere!

OK, there are a bunch of other posts that I have been typing over the last few days that I’ll make over the next day or two. I also have a shedload of pictures (I took around 300 pictures at the wedding alone). For now I’m going to take some snaps of this cafe and go back to the Hachiko Statue to meet up with Akino.

See you all soon!