Day 5 - Ginza, Shibuya and Asagaya

Of course I had a million plans for Krusty's first full day without work in Tokyo, but things never go to plan when you want them to...

We started by sweating down Ginza looking for a place to eat, couldn't find one, tried the local depato, nothing, argued a little, took the tube to Shibuya, hot and bothered.

Then the plan was to leave out bags in the station lockers and sleep in a 'love hotel' that night, capitalising on experience and savings. Now I know this sounds naive, but love hotels are not just for prostitutes and one night stands. They are also a legitimate cheap option when you have missed the last train, and, now remember, I am not being naive, kids use them to play games or study in peace away from the people crowding their tiny house back home. I know it sounds outlandish, but it's true. There is of course lots of 'love' going on too. But anyway, they are quite fun because, as well as being one of the cheapest forms of accommodation, they also require you to choose your room from a picture board, and then a hand pops out with the key and you find your room, never meeting another soul along the way. And the rooms tend to be huge and 'themed' - you can have the 'Hello Kitty' room, the 'Prince of Wales' room (don't ask) or the waterbed room. It's fun, and I thought Krusty would enjoy this quirk. Of course, that was without counting on the fact that the lockers were shut for the G8 summit which was happening hundreds of kilometres away in Hokkaido, but whatever, there was to be no locker action anywhere in Tokyo for five days. The overnight Love Hotel rate would only kick in from 10pm, and we were stuck with our bags.

We tried another 'normal' hotel - too expensive, so we tried a Love Hotel anyway, but the hourly cost until 10pm plus the overnight fee added up to more than a four star hotel. So we ended up in a dodgy hole called Shibuya City Hotel, with the tiniest room I've ever seen. Not a good start.

We then went to meet Nick at Hachiko, along with anyone who was meeting anyone. Hachiko is the statue outside Shibuya station, placed there to commemorate the dog who used to wait for his master everyday as he came back from work, even years after his master had actually died... We walked around in a 34 degree daze, sat drinking in the Dubliner's and then made our (long-winded) way to Asagaya for Nick's monthly open acoustic session.

We sat amongst the guitarists, flutists, violinist and man with a pianica (piano/harmonica) as they jammed along. The blond beer started to melt into the blond guitar wood in my mind as Krusty shook his 'egg' filled with rice. He was actually surprisingly good for someone who is tone deaf. I guess you can have rhythm even if you can't sing. The guys covered Dylan, Joplin, the Beatles and their own hits, Virginia sang and I tapped my feet, practicing my perfectly honed listening instrument, and it was just a lovely evening, if not a totally authentic Japanese one... There were some Japanese people there though, and music became our means of communication for the night...