The typhoon seems to have largely missed Tokyo, or at least the part where we are staying. So we got in a long day of sightseeing and walking. By the end of the day, we had logged more than 30,000 steps. These steps took us from our hotel in the Shinjuku district to the Akihabara electronics district. On the way, we stopped at a shrine to Japanese war dead and a few guitar stores (with really expensive, and I mean really expensive, guitars). We wandered back and forth looking for places to eat before learning how to order ramen from a machine in exchange for tickets that are given to a waitress who places the order. All afternoon we browsed electronics shops. When I was here 25 years ago, it was incredible to see the electronics that we couldn't get in the US. And the video games! I was so excited to buy the Mega Drive games WrestleWar and Battle Golf (the latter being really hard without a better functional knowledge of Japanese). But now, nearly everything for sale in Japan can also be bought from Amazon. And there weren't any great deals where the prices were better than what I can get in the US. I did go on an hour-long quest to get a newly released retro video game console (the Neo Geo Mini, a reminder of times spent at Gamers Paradise looking at a prohibitively expensive gaming system and its even more prohibitively expensive games). Alas, I couldn't find a new one in any of the stores, and the one used games store that had one was charging a 50% markup over retail. So maybe I'll buy a less in-demand retro gaming system to play with Eli on this trip.
Went to the post office and got the baseball tickets we'd purchased from Stubhub. Excited to see the Tokyo Dome, we arrived early for the game. I'm glad we did, as there were lots of synchronized chants and mascot shenanigans. The game itself was somewhat dull - the Tigers, who we were nominally cheering for, seemed to employ a "take every pitch until there are two strikes" strategy to tire out the pitcher. I started falling asleep, Eli had a bit of a headache, and we had a rather unfortunate attempt to eat dinner at the stadium (it turns out a beef curry at a baseball stadium is exactly as bad as you'd think it would be), so we left after the fifth inning. After going to the wrong train station once, we figured out how to buy our tickets and get back to the hotel. Now its time to sleep and try to fight Eli's mortal enemy - "Stupid jet lag".
But Mrs. Peanutbutter is happy, as she got her steps.
