It was another beautiful day in Tokyo and I figured I’d just wander around a bit and make sure I visited the geek Mecca of Akihabara. I went for the electronics, not for the anime stuff and the maid cafés, even if you don’t believe me.

I started out the day at Hoshino Coffee again. They have a good breakfast set menu, and the coffee is quite good and strong, just the way I like it. None of this hipster “bright” coffee nonsense. I ordered the omelette set, which arrived with a huge (for Japan) omelette!

As soon as I took a bite I realized why, it was all airy and fluffy!

I didn’t want to go straight to Akihabara because nothing seems to open before about 10AM here. I noticed that the Ginza Apple store hours said 8AM, so I thought I’d pass by and see what the new iPhone X looked like first. Not a great idea.

I used Google maps to estimate the line was about 400m long (four football fields). Every time I thought I found the end of the line I realized it was just the standard Japanese trick of breaking up the line so people weren’t blocking driveways or streets. There were a LOT of people in line. Later in the day I just walked up to one at Bic Camera, I think, and played with one for a minute.

I decided just to take a long walk to Akihabara, about 40 minutes away, and that wasn’t the best idea either. I’ve walked through a lot of neighborhoods in Tokyo and this was the blandest walk I’ve ever taken. Here’s a shot from a good part closer to Ginza.

After Tokyo Station (which turned out to be much larger underground than I remember)

it was just a wasteland of gigantic construction projects or bleak buildings. I didn’t take any pictures of that. At some point I just popped out into Akihabara. I wandered around a bit and found the old parts stores that had tubes and ancient chips that are still in business and spent way too much money on a Nixie tube display kit.

Then I spent a couple of hours trying to find a store that I used as a landmark, only to realize that the reason I used the store as a landmark was really to find the store where I bought the Nixie tube kit. I sheepishly headed to Mos Burger for a late lunch.

I wondered what to do next, and I finally decided to do the easy thing: visit a shrine. And I was near Kanda Myoujin. I even took the stairs that almost did my mom in on her last trip to Japan.

It was busy! I had to line up to do the usual shrine thing, and saw traditional musicians, shichi-go-san kids, and even a wedding!

I even had a soft ice cream cone.

After that I headed towards a train station, which happened to be near Kanda’s row of music stores, so I did stop in to a violin shop and peek in the windows to see all the pretty guitars and brass instruments for sale. Funny, I don’t remember seeing any woodwinds or percussion instruments, but I’m sure I’m just forgetting them.

The only other thing of note was going to dinner. I thought I’d try somewhere different and ended up on the Odakyu dining floor at the same restaurant I’ve been to several times before. There was a line of Japanese people and you know how we Asians like to line up. I was afraid to try the places that only had lines of Chinese tourists or, even worse, no line at all.

Fortunately, I felt much better today. It was also a beautiful day with 0% chance of rain according to the liars at weather.com (it rained in the evening) so I decided it was time to visit Shonan Brewing. The head brewer, Tsutsui-san, has visited Portland a couple of times and last month he came to do a collaboration with Culmination Brewing. We’ve been out drinking several times and he took a couple of hours out of his schedule to show me around.

But I started the day out at Hoshino Coffee again, this time getting the Egg Slut. I had it a couple of times last year and it’s tasty.

It takes about an hour and a half on several trains to make it to Kagawa Station in Chigasaki where Shonan Beer is located. I couldn’t find Shonan Brewing on Google maps because it’s really a part of Kumazawa Brewing, a sake maker who has a beer sideline. Lots of craft beer in Japan is made by traditional sake brewers who are branching out. Kagawa station is in the middle of nowhere and the first thing I noticed is all of the old ladies descending upon a restaurant that serves Italian food.

I heard the restaurant was recently on NHK-TV, adding to the popularity. The owner of the brewery has an art shop and three restaurants on the property and I heard he also has plans to add an onsen and a ryokan.

I didn’t take a whole lot of pictures of the brewery, but I did see some tanks from Canby and Portland Kettle Works.

Tsutsui-san even showed me where they store some of the sake for aging, which is a WWII-era underground bunker.

I also had a burger at the less crowded restaurant. Being a Portlander, I had coffee and beer.

I was planning on taking a different route back, through Chigasaki, but JR was having issues all day and I had to take Odakyu both out and back. While it made the ride a little repetitive, it was the cheapest alternative on Google maps and only cost ~¥800 each way

Later I went out to dinner with my old co-worker Suzuki-san and that just meant more beer.

We called it a night early because I’m still a bit jet-lagged and Suzuki-san has a weird schedule and hasn’t worked since he was laid off several years ago. Currently he goes to bed at 3PM and gets up around 10PM. We were both up “late”.

And now I’ve been fighting with putting up this post (and the slowness of uploading pictures) and it’s later than I thought. Time to really call it a night!

I’m getting a really slow start this year. I guess the difference is that most years I’m traveling the first couple of days and so I don’t do anything but sit on a train. This year I’m staying in Tokyo for a while and that’s throwing me off.

I woke up after a poor night’s sleep (jet lag) with a huge headache. My sister says it was due to the beer and that might be true. I started out dehydrated because of the hot yoga I do, and the airplane didn’t do me any favors. I only had two beers (the second looking like it was less than a pint) and the Tokyo air probably didn’t help much either.

So I started out the day looking for something I could keep down because the headache was also making me feel a little nauseated. I went to Hoshino Coffee where they still had Egg Slut on the morning menu but had ham and cheese toast and nice strong coffee.

Then I decided to go to the Seiko repair center to see if they could do maintenance on my Grand Seiko. They told me it would take about a month (they take it completely apart and polish it) and I found a web site that put the cost around $1000! I guess the polishing takes some skill and they can’t do it in the US, so it’s quicker to get it serviced back home. But he suggested I hold off until I could stay in Japan for a month if I ever had that option.

I was wandering around wondering what to do next and I decided to go see “Art Treasures of the Imperial Court” that my mom told me about. Turns out it’s all art commissioned by the Imperial Court made by the Tokyo Fine Arts University, and it was held at the Tokyo Fine Arts University Museum, near Ueno Park. This gave me a chance to wander around the park for a while.

As I wandered through the park, I somehow clicked on food suggestions in Google Maps and that took me to lunch. Mixed fried seafood, and it’s also oyster season. It was quite good.

At that point it was only 1PM or so and I decided to head back to the hotel for a nap. I never did take a nap, but I spent most of the afternoon sitting around and updating my computer and iPhone to the latest release. I did make it out to dinner. Facebook had some suggestions but I used yelp and went to a Nepalese restaurant. It took me through the heart of the red-light district (though that’s really tame in Tokyo).

It was definitely not quiet like Indian food, and obviously I didn’t like it since I left so much of it. Two curries, — one with edamame & potato and the other with chicken & potato — soup, chutney, and dessert. It wasn’t too spicy, but it made me sweat like I was in the hot yoga room. After wandering around a short bit more, I made it back to my hotel room.

I’m meeting my friend Suzuki-san for dinner tomorrow and I’m going to call it an early night again and maybe take a trip to a brewery beforehand. I’ll see how I’m feeling tomorrow morning.