Tokyo (Day 4)

Still trying to figure out what the Japanese eat for breakfast, we decide to try out the hotel's buffet breakfast. There's the usual suspects like coffee, juice, toast, cereal, bacon, eggs but the buffet also offers rice, soup, dim sims, chicken nuggets and chips. It was interesting to say the least.

Time to get touristy again. We take the train out to Asakusa, which has a bit of an older Tokyo vibe. We waste some money on hot canned coffee from one of the drink vending machines, which seem to be on every corner and get sucked into buying soccer cards from the toy capsule machines. This district has heaps of little market stalls and food places. We wander around and check out the temple and park. We pay $1 to get our fortune (in broken English) and it's not great. It's OK, you can tie your bad fortunes to a pole and then it no longer counts. Phew! Crisis averted.

Jeff wants to do some batting so we wander around until we find the local batting cage. This one has 150km per hour balls and Jeff is chaffing at the bit. He hits a bunch then we decide its time for a late lunch and drinks.

It's been about 24 hours since our last ramen, so we head to a place called Ikebukuro, we're we're on the lookout for Ichiran, a ramen chain we've heard good things about. This is another choose your food and pay at a machine type restaurant. We do and hop into the line (a good sign). Finally our booths are ready. The setup here is individual booths with dividers between each and a door at the front of the booth where your ramen (and beer) get delivered through. The door is then closed and you can slurp your soup in peace, effectively not having to interact with anyone!

We follow our nose to a pastry joint that is selling one item, apple and custard encased in a fluffy to perfection pastry. These guys sure know what they're doing! Full to the brim we walk around and check out the district a bit more. Many shops, flashing lights, happy music and people around. We head back to the hotel to prepare for the evening out.

We're all dolled up and ready to the hit the New York Bar. It's on the 52nd floor of the Park Hyatt in between Shinjuku and Shibuya. The bar features in the movie Lost in Translation and we've heard the view is pretty wild. Which an understatement. As we exit the lift and catch our first glimpse, we are stunned. The views is incredible and no word or photo could do it justice. The city stretches as far as the eye can see on each side. We pay the $25 cover charge and are seated for a few rounds of drinks. We're just as stunned by the bill at the end, but worth every cent.

After we've had our fill of the view (not possible) it's time for a late dinner. We walk around until we find a place that's doing ramen til 3am (yes, ramen twice in one day) make our selections at the machine and take a seat. The food comes out a short time later and we tuck in. Like all the ramen, it's delish. Feeling satisfied we grab a cab and head home for the night.