Friday 4th April- It didn't rain until late.

Rain was promised for today, just like yesterday, and so we planned a day of looking inside shops etc and low and behold when we awoke there were some grey patched but by late morning the sun was out and our umbrellas and hats and outerwear was packed in the soft rucksack as we were to warm. Not anticipating this Noel had left his sunglasses in the Hotel and so by late morning at great expense Yen 1000 or £ 5.50 he had a new pair from the makedo shop by the side of Shinjuku station.
However on leaving the Hotel this morning we explored a supermarket and said thats where we will buy tonights dinner as they had a good choice of food.These shops are fascinating to wander around but better things were to come when we entered the Isetan Department Store and went downstairs to their food hall which is absolutely amazing in the choice of food from sushi to just about everything available and packed to perfection. Even the wine section had some good wines at prices lower than New Zealand. We even saw a Cloudy Bay white wine for about £ 12.00 when it is around 15% more in NZ, and it has to get here.

After leaving the food floor a cup of coffee was needed and then on to the Kinokuniya for map hunting and this time we were more successful and jennifer was able to get the road map she needed for our road trip which starts towards the end of next week.
We continued our walk in the warm sunny weather towards Shinjuku Station and the exchanged some travellers cheques and then found a station restaurant, one of perhaps several hundred restaurant which operate in small to large spaces and so with tummies full of spaghetti we headed for Akihabara the electronics area of Tokyo.

As you will see from the photos, there are numerous shops offering every type of camera, mobile phone to TVs and washing machines and of course lots of young girls dressed in some amazing outfits to try and pull the punters to their store. So a cup of iced tea later and then an ice cream, to top it off, we took the Yamanote line back to to Shinjuku.
The JR Yamanote line is a bit like the circle line in London and just goes round and round some of the main areas of central Tokyo. We had also purchased out 'SUICA' card, a bit like the 'Oyster Card' for £18.00 each which is the maximum you can put on the card we understand from the JR salesman.
On returning to Shinjuku Station we visited the Odakyu Department store food section which was great and we purchased a box of sushi, some salads and a bottle of Chardonnay to take home for dinner. We were quite tired of walking by now and cheated by taking a taxi back to the Hotel and then a shower and dinner which was really excellent.
We had also bought  box of strawberries which were also extremely good and then on to some blogging.

 A really good day for us although a little tired but after all we are not so young and also not recovered for the four hour time change. Now looking forward to tomorrow.