readsalot

Because it's been very difficult to find coin laundries anywhere nearby, I washed a bunch of clothes in the sink last night. O, the glamorous life. I'm hoping they'll be dry enough to pack tomorrow morning.

This morning, after getting up and transferring the wet clothes from hanging around the bathtub to the closet, I took my breakfast coupon and went in seek of food. The excellent buffet restaurant had a very long line, and the Japanese restaurant had a shorter but still noticeable one, so I went to the food court, which had both Japanese and Western food. I got miso soup, two different kinds of fish, shu-mai, noodles, rice, and a glass of what I think was guava juice. All good, but I may try to get up earlier and try for the buffet restaurant tomorrow.

( and the tour begins )

Tomorrow we go to look at Mount Fuji. I don't know what the internet situation will be like for the next few days, but I'll update again when I can. I'm getting tired of this keyboard's betrayal, so I'll sign off now. (I just typed this whole thing for the second time when the first time through went into some kind of weird wide Unicode thing that I couldn't get it out of, and now the keyboard has gone into a mode where it keeps trying to turn my typing into hiragana.) They don't have the English language mode installed on this machine, which makes life difficult.

I'm going to have most of one day in Tokyo to myself after the tour ends. I'm trying to figure out what I should do. Possibilities:

Tokyo Tower. The Lonely Planet guide book says that it's a tourist trap these days. On the other hand, it's appeared in so many anime that I may have to go. Also, I just checked out their website, so I see that there are a bunch of little shops and restaurants (including the Tokyo Curry Lab, which babelfish insists on translating as Tokyo Calais Lab), and then there's Statistics Plaza: "This space is provided to acquaint more people with statistics by introducing the history of statistics and statistical data." I may not be able to resist.

Tokyo Tower is in the Roppongi district, so I could go there and then to the Mori Art Museum, which looks very cool, and which includes admission to Tokyo City View, from which I can look down on Tokyo Tower.

Or, I could go to the Ikebukuro area, and visit the Japan Traditional Craft Center (some nice displays, but more of a working resource than a museum), and Sunshine City (contains Sunshine 60, another really tall building which was featured prominently in the manga/anime X/1999, as well as the Ikebukuro Gyoza Stadium, which is apparently a food court devoted entirely to gyoza).

Vaguely near Sumida, there's the Edo-Tokyo Museum (history of Tokyo) and the Fukagawa Edo Museum (recreates a 17th century Edo neighborhood).

In the Odaiba area, there's the Miraikan (National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation, which is apparently going to be closed on all the days when I'm in Tokyo, so never mind), a giant ferris wheel, the Japan Folk Crafts Museum, a hot springs theme park, and a couple of giant shopping malls.

Other suggestions are welcome.