Day 3 in Tokyo is just as hot as the other days! Definitely shorts and t-shirt weather. Today we decided to hit Roppongi, Ginza and the Sony Store and the Shinjuku district. We headed to the station and decided this time not to buy the JR/Metro all-day pass and opt for the cheaper Metro pass. This will set you back around 780 yen and lets you take the subway pretty much everywhere. The JR lines are more convenient for the major attractions but you can do everything on the metro pass anyway but to get to some stations you will have to change lines and it will be a bit of a hassle walking between platforms. But most of the signs are in English so it isn’t too hard.<br />
<br />
First stop is to head over to Roppongi. This is apparently where all the night clubs are and where a majority of the Westerners live. Roppongi is on the Hibaya line and involved catching the Red line to Ginza and changing to the Hibaya line to Roppongi.<br />
<br />
Our destination was a shrine that was established by <a href=”https://dave.shakenmartini.net/serendipity/exit.php?url_id=258&amp;entry_id=160″ title=”http://www.samurai-archives.com/ieyasu.html” onmouseover=”window.status=’http://www.samurai-archives.com/ieyasu.html’;return true;” onmouseout=”window.status=”;return true;”>Ieyasu Tokugawa</a> but after consulting a map we couldn’t actually find it in amongst all the little alleyways around the area. We decided to head back to Ginza to have a look at a shop that had been recommended to Vic by one of her workmates.<br />
<br />
At Ginza, one of the main attractions is the Sony concept store just off the main train station. It’s sort of like a SonyStyle store in Australia but they will also show off some of the cooler concepts that they are working on. I did get to see the Aibo robot dog but unfortunately they did not have any of the <a href=”https://dave.shakenmartini.net/serendipity/exit.php?url_id=259&amp;entry_id=160″ title=”http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/QRIO/” onmouseover=”window.status=’http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/QRIO/’;return true;” onmouseout=”window.status=”;return true;”>QRIO robots</a> on display.<br />
<br />
The rest of Ginza is just another shopping district so it wasn’t that interesting - there’s only so many shopping plazas that you can see without becoming incredibly bored. One thing I did notice everywhere that I went is that the Japanese really love their brands, especially European couture!<br />
<br />
As the food here looked kind of pricey (they mainly had formal restaurants here, no real food courts) we took the train one stop to Tokyo to try and find a sushi train. When we got there the food court that Vic thought had the sushi train was actually in the JR part of the stations so our cards could not get us there. We ended up going to Kitchen Street in the station and had gyoza at a small restaurant in there.<br />
<br />
From Tokyo, I wanted to go to the temple at Asukasa. This is in the northern part of the city and is quite a famous (but touristy) shrine and has an impressive 5 storey pagoda. From Tokyo it takes a couple of train changes to get onto the Orange line but we were there within half an hour or so to discover that they day that we decided to head out there they were also having the 25th annual Tokyo Samba festival! It was incredibly noisy and very packed to say the least. It took a good hour or so we battle the crowds and move to where we could get into the temple. I’ll put the photos up when I get back home but there was a huge number of floats and performers, all with whistles, drums etc and a variety of bizarre and colourful outfits.<br />
<br />
The temple grounds were also packed full of tourists, samba performers. I wasn’t as impressed with this temple as the Meiji shrine - they were almost complete opposites. Meiji was the epitome of tranquility and peace whereas Asukasa was just crowded and noisy.<br />
<br />
After having a look around the temple we explored the markets and I ended up buying a yakuta from one of the stalls. We took our time wandering back to the station and I tried a burger from MosBurger, a local fast food joint. The burger that I tried though, was not your typical American style cheese-burger but was a sandwich made out of compressed rice cakes (kind of like sushi rice) with strips of pork marinated in some teriyaki type sauce. It actually tasted really good - it was quite small but very tasty.<br />
<br />
From Asukasa we took the train to Shinjuku. This is the place where they have the guards push you onto the train during peak hour. Vic was keen to get shoved on the train and was a little disappointed that we were out of the rush hour. Shinjuku was more of a business district but we were more keen to see some of the neon signs. Personally I think Shibuya had the better signage.<br />
<br />
We had dinner here at a sushi train - I think that we were expecting an Australian style sushi train where you do get a wide variety of sushis to choose from, but this is not the case. There are really only 5 types of sushi on hand - 2 types of nigiri (salmon and tuna), a seafood salad type one, an egg and finally a eel sushi. No other variations come out, whereas in Australia I think they have experimented with different sorts that are unique to our country. Vic wasn’t that keen for the raw stuff (she prefers the cooked tuna kind) and we headed back home since it was pushing 9pm.<br />
<br />
The next day we had to head out to the airport. Knowing that it could take several hours to get there I suggest that we catch the 9:33 train direct from Ikebukuro to Narita terminal 2. There are several ways of getting to the airport depending on how you want to travel.<br />
<br />
1) Airport limo is a bus service departing several points in the city. For us it would be Sunshine City Plaza but we really needed to book this service in advance. Also it could take a long time if the traffic is particularly bad. This costs about 3000 yen<br />
2) Skyliner is a train service departing from Nippori or Ueno and is a luxury service on a high speed train. This costs about 1980 yen and would have been a good option if we had booked it before hand (ahh hindsight is so useful!). The downside is that you have to get a ticket to Nippori or Ueno and this may have taken a little while to get there and I wasn’t sure if we could get there in time. From Nippori it only takes 64 minutes to get to Narita.<br />
3) JR Airport line. This is what we went with. If you book in advance you can get a seated carraige for 3000 yen or 2600 for standing room only. I would suggest going for the seated tickets as it does take about an hour and a quarter to get to Narita. You can just sit on the floor if you want but it is definitely not as comfortable. If the service is not booked out you could just try sneaking a seat but when we went all the seats were already taken.<br />
<br />
Once you get to the Narita, checking in and going through customs is very quick so we had plenty of time to get a few last minute items before going to the gate. Food here is a lot more expensive as you would expect but there is a wide variety of stuff to choose from - sushi, tempura, katsu as well as a food court.<br />
<br />
Our Tokyo adventure was at an end and we caught the flight into Amsterdam - 11 hours later we were landing in a new continent.

Woke up late today, a little knackered from all the travelling yesterday. We staggered down to breakfast around 9:30am. Not a traditional buffet breakfast by western standards - it had omelettes and small sausages plus an assortment of pastries. Also on the menu was a variety of oriental goodies - miso soup, fermented soy beans etc. There was also what I thought was boiled egg but turned out to be raw egg when I tried to break the shell!<br />
<br />
First stop was to try and get to Akihabara - Electronic Town. I wanted a new digital camera as the trusty Sony that I was using wasn’t quite up to scratch anymore. It was getting slower to startup and the battery life was starting to suck. Navigating the rail system can be quite intimidating as we don’t read any Japanese. Thankfully we found the ticket office and were able to get an all-day rail pass for 1560 Yen each. In hindsight we should have just gotten the metro pass for ~7000 Yen as this would have gotten us on all of the rail networks anyway.<br />
<br />
We also stopped off at the food court in Ikebukuro to get some supplies for the day. It’s kind of like the food court underneath David Jones, with a wide variety of food to be purchased. We bought some buns from the bakery and some drinks from the grocery store.<br />
<br />
With this in hand we made our way to the Yamanote Line to get to Akihabara. The Yamanote line is an above ground circuit of Tokyo - it connects to most of the major stations. Akihabara is 10 stops from Ikebukuro and takes about 30 minutes to get there - pretty quick. I suggest that if you do go to Tokyo, make sure that you get a English subway map. You can download them easily off the internet.<br />
<br />
Akihabara is chock full of stores selling electronic gear. If you are going to be buying gear here make sure you try and find a store that has english speaking sales-staff and make sure you shop around! Just walking around in a small area can yield differences in price of around 8000 yen! I found the camera that I wanted - a Casio Exilim EX-Z500. Small size with a great instant-on function (it takes about 1-2 seconds from switching it on to being ready to take photos) it is perfect for when I am out and about and see something that I want to get a photo of. I’ll post up some photos when I get them downloaded to my PC.<br />
<br />
Another tip to getting good deals - try to bundle stuff together, not only will they give you a discount off normal retail but if you are buying goods with a total value of 10,000 yen or more they will give you the duty free price. Not all places will do this so always ask first. Also ask for English manuals and see if they will give you an international warranty. Note: Nikon and Canon will not give you international warranties if you buy in Japan.<br />
<br />
I ended up buying my camera, plus a fast SD card from Akky Duty Free. When you exit the train station towards Electronic Town they are in the small arcade directly across the street.<br />
<br />
It was around 1:30pm by this time so we stopped in a small restaurant for some food. Food is really cheap if you buy in or around the train stations. I would pay around 550 yen for a small meal set - this included a small dish of kaarage chicken, 2 sushis (the larger triangle kind) plus a miso soup. To buy drinking water or soft drink there are million vending machines around the place and they will cost around 120 yen. We ended up spending quite a bit on water throughout the day as it is very hot and humid at the moment.<br />
<br />
The next stop was Harajuku - where we could go and visit the Meiji shrine. I noticed that a lot of Japanese people would carry around a small hanky with which they would wipe their faces with when sweaty - I thought this was a great idea and purchased one at the gift shop at Meiji. The shrine area is fantastic, very leafy and it would be quite tranquil if you could block out the noise from all the crickets. We had a quick look around here and stopped by the trees carrying all the votives that people have placed there and the main shrine.<br />
<br />
From here we walked up Harajuku and had a quick look at the stores there. I did notice that every once in a while there would be a large group of girls all dressed the same. I wasn’t sure what they did - perhaps they were promotions girls or something.<br />
<br />
We continued walking and then moved on to Shibuya. This, apparently, is where a lot of the students and young people hang out. This was confirmed as soon as we moved into one of the shopping malls. Apparently one of the pre-requisites of shopping here is that you have to be extremely thin, very very tanned, wear either very loud clothes or short mini-skirts and have a huge blonde wig. Young girls totter about these malls on massive stilettoes and are accosted by shop assistants at every turn. Vic did manage to buy a t-shirt that said “Bring” which I can only assume was meant to say “Bling” <img src=”https://dave.shakenmartini.net/serendipity/templates/default/img/emoticons/smile.png” alt=”:-)” style=”display: inline; vertical-align: bottom;” class=”emoticon” /><br />
<br />
Not everything is fashion. One mission of ours was to buy some fabric to stretch on to some frames back home. We did find an excellent fabric store near the station and Vic was finally able to get some material for her art project.<br />
<br />
Shibuya does have a large number of malls. The malls here are definitely not like the ones in Australia. They tend to be quite narrow and spread out over 7-9 floors. The lights here are also quite amazing - 13 storey neon signs dominate the landscape.<br />
<br />
Shibuya was our last stop before heading home. We’re definitely a lot more confident with getting around on the metro. There are heaps of English signs and as long as you know what line you need to catch it is pretty easy. We had dinner at a Curry house - again there are heaps of around. I had a tonkatsu curry and Vic had a beef hash curry, both quite tasty. I was amused to see a spiciness rating from 1-10. 5 is apparently very hot and is the pre-requisite to getting the 6-10 rating foods.<br />
<br />
All in all we had a great day on the town. Tomorrow we’re going to head into Shinjuku, Ginza, Roppongi and Tokyo station. Vic is dying for some gyoza/sushi plus there are apparently some nice temples in the Roppongi district.

Well we have arrived in Tokyo this evening and made our way to the hotel in the Ikebukuro area. However we have been told that there is a typhoon coming! So we may have to batten down the hatches for our stay here.<br />
<br />
First impressions - pretty good. Getting on the Airport Limo service was not a problem even if it was a little expensive to get into the city (around 3000 Yen). It took just over an hour to get to our drop off point near the hotel. From there we got a taxi to the hotel.. or as near to the hotel as possible. As it turns out we are on a street dominated by video game arcades and pachinko parlours. Luckily we can’t hear anything from the room.<br />
<br />
The hotel seems to be in a good location - there is a train station very close by (if they don’t close the trains down because of the weather) and there are heaps of little restaurants around. It kind of reminds me of Kings Cross here, there are heaps of touts trying to get the passerby’s into their establishments. The only difference being that they aren’t strip shows and they universally ignore the two of us walking by.<br />
<br />
After all the warnings about how much food was, when we did go out to get something to eat it was surprisingly cheap. We did go to a little restaurant where your order is taken by vending machine. Once you feed the machine money and select your food (handily pictured for your benefit) you give the ticket to the guys in the middle and they bring it all out for you when it is ready. Great system and extremely efficient.<br />
<br />
The food itself was not great. The chicken curry that Vic ordered only had one piece of chicken in it and the steak that I ordered was mostly gristle. However it was extremely cheap, the steak was 580 Yen and Vic’s curry was 290 Yen.<br />
<br />
Tomorrow we’ll head out and explore a little more, hopefully the weather clears up a little. They are predicting 34C and humid tomorrow!

Interesting concept site.. <a href=”https://dave.shakenmartini.net/serendipity/exit.php?url_id=257&amp;entry_id=157″ title=”http://www.dontclick.it” onmouseover=”window.status=’http://www.dontclick.it’;return true;” onmouseout=”window.status=”;return true;”>http://www.dontclick.it</a>. How long can you resist without clicking the mouse button?

From the<a href=”https://dave.shakenmartini.net/serendipity/exit.php?url_id=256&amp;entry_id=156″ title=”http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,16270429%5e16123%5e%5enbv%5e,00.html” onmouseover=”window.status=’http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,16270429%5e16123%5e%5enbv%5e,00.html’;return true;” onmouseout=”window.status=”;return true;”> Australian IT</a> section:<br />
<br />
Apple computer has failed in an attempt to patent some iPod technology because Microsoft had already file a similar application some five months before Apple did. The request, filed by Apple chief executive Steve Jobs in October 2002, was rejected last month by the US Patent Office, documents show.<br />
<br />
The application describes a “portable, pocket-sized multimedia asset player” capable of managing MP3 music files including “a song title, a song artist, a song album, a song length”.<br />
<br />
The rejection sets up a legal showdown over a patent on the best-selling digital music player in the US.<br />
<br />
Microsoft, which makes software that runs rival devices, will licence the technology to Apple if awarded the patent. I’m sure that they won’t try to screw Apple over the licensing terms and conditions. David Kaefer, Microsoft’s intellectual property licensing and business development manager said last week, ” Our policy is to allow others to licence our patents so they can use our innovative methods in their products.” <br />
<br />
One third of Apple’s revenues come from iPod and it is the number one MP3 player in the world. The iPod and iTunes internet music store sales contributed 38 per cent of Apple’s revenue last quarter, up from 16 per cent a year earlier.<br />
<br />
Apple’s patent application was filed a year after the iPod was introduced but on behalf of Microsoft, employee John Platt had applied for a similar patent five months earlier, according to US Patent and Trademark Office documents.<br />
<br />
Apple can appeal against the decision to an in-house patent office legal body called the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences, US Patent and Trademark Office spokeswoman Brigid Quinn said.<br />
<br />
The ruling didn’t mean it was all over for Apple because it could submit its case as to why it thought the application shouldn’t have been rejected, but that appeal could take six to 18 months.<br />
<br />
If the patent was rejected again, Apple could take the application to federal court or the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, both of which could overturn the Patent Office decision.<br />
<br />
As an alternative to the appeal, Apple could refile its application with the same or similar claims, or elements of the patent with new arguments, Mr Quinn said.<br />
<br />
Records at the US Patent and Trademark Office show Microsoft’s application was rejected in December 2004.<br />
<br />
Platt amended the application in April last year and on June 27 the office indicated that Microsoft’s pending patent would be approved after payment.<br />
<br />
“Microsoft and Apple have previously licenced their respective patent portfolios to one another, and we maintain a good relationship with Apple,” Mr Kaefer said.

Try this <a href=”https://dave.shakenmartini.net/serendipity/exit.php?url_id=254&amp;entry_id=155″ title=”http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/sleep/tmt” onmouseover=”window.status=’http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/sleep/tmt’;return true;” onmouseout=”window.status=”;return true;”>memory test</a>. It will test how good your recognition and temporal memory is. I scored 91% on recognition and 77% on the temporal - may try it again with some decent sleep but they reckon that it does not affect your memory too much.