I got up fairly early and had breakfast then faffed around so that I left later than I'd planned. I headed to my old hostel the Sakura where they had a computer. I started in the right direction but after a bit I wasn't quite sure where I was. I changed direction and came to a larger road and found a shop I'm sure we had walked past before that looked quite cheap. I had a look for some waterproof spray and surprisingly it sold all kinds of things including cheap SD cards and food. There were 8 floors but the waterproof spray was ¥900, more than in Mount Bell. I bought a 16gb SD card and left with just a few hundred yen left. I managed to get to the hostel around 8.45 and the scrambled eggs were 250 which was more than I'd remembered. I used the computer and it was really slow so I didn't get much done. I did get my flight details, hostel details and found that there were 2 webpages on the Tone M14 and one didn't have much English. I overheard some Americans talking about poker and one guy called Carl sounded like he played games a lot so I asked if I could maybe join them and Carl said they started the day before around 9pm. I left and went to the shrine past the imperial palace entrance and there was a museum about WW2 which interested me but I found it was about the living conditions here which didn't interest me much. The shrine was the same as last time except they'd opened up a small building at the end. There were still no sumo wrestlers despite the grand tournament being on and I left and headed towards a park. There was a supermarket on the way but it was really expensive and I found an information map which told me I had just gone the wrong way which was lucky as with a paper map it could have been a while before I realised. I made it to the park but there was a wall and the gate was shut so I walked around to the north and there was an open entrance and a palace building called Akoyaka. It was fairly grand but there was no access in or anywhere else so I had to go back and continue around and west. There were some more locked gates and I stopped to take something out of my bag and was about to move on when done security person said something to me over a megaphone. Here I was on a pavement and apparently I wasn't supposed to stop. I shouted at him a bit about the fact that I was about to move but I'll just stay here a bit longer now and he didn't seem to speak any English. I moved on and there were more security guards so I asked one what was happening and he said it was the imperial palace so it was always shut. Further on there was an actual park and a museum for Meiji Jingu shrine. It cost about all I had left but the building was nice and was opposite a baseball field. I crossed the road to go north which wasn't easy as the station didn't help and paid ¥200 to enter the park. The map showed a few things to see and the greenhouse was OK and the French garden area nice. There were ponds and trees but some areas like the cherry trees were a disappointment. Still the park was good and I walked around then headed on the road to Shinjuku station area where I'd already been twice for trains. There was a nice looking tower building with a clock called Yoyogi tower and I headed to the electronics area. I found a Yodobashi camera store there which I'd been recommended to find phone batteries and a girl there spoke English and told me they didn't sell Samsung in this Country. I asked to see their sim free phones and the cheapest was about ¥12000, quite a bit more than the tone m14. I left and was a bit disappointed that there weren't many shops and it wasn't as good as Akihabara and I headed towards the government building with free views. There were lots of notice boards to help me find the way and I saw a Fresco which was the name of the supermarket in Hiroshima but this turned out to be a pachinko slots place. The government building was tall with Tokyo 2020 Olympics banners and I worried it might not be open on weekends but it was and I got an empty lift up to floor 45. The views at the too were good south, west and a bit north were buildings blocking some of the view but east had a restaurant area which only customers were allowed in. I went back down and went round the nearby central park and went south. I decided I was going to get the phone and the Uniqlo trousers so I would need ¥12000 and I went into a Lawson's to use their ATM. They didn't have one but they did have some great prices on food as it was a Lawson 100. It amazed me how much cheaper it was and I bought some nuts, tofu and dim sum and ate the dim sum. I was down to my last pennies but there was a normal Lawson with a cash machine only it would only dispense in 10,000 denominations. I carried on and came to a place selling 15cm USB cables for just ¥10, but I really should have got more than just one as it was so cheap and then I continued to the shrine in the park. It was busy but the shrine was bigger than most although I could have missed it and not been too bothered. I walked south through the park but it was just stone paths between trees so not much of a park. There were a lot of people around the exit coming from somewhere else and there were also some hillybilly or rockabilly people dancing to old music. I crossed and walked against the crowd to a stadium where a basketball game had finished and I carried on and found a Thai festival thing. I thought it might just be a few market stalls so I walked through and it was big and crowded so when I got to the end I didn't want to go back so I carried on and came to the actual park which said there was no through route to the shrine. The park was mainly grass areas with a few fountains and a pond but it was really busy and I headed out and ended up back at the rockabilly people. From there I tried to get to Shubaya but ended up going east along a shopping street. I looked for a cash machine and went into soft bank who's WiFi signals I'd been having trouble connecting to several times. It was a mobile phone shop with a repair centre so I checked if they had phone batteries or could fix my phone but they didn't do Samsung as its not sold in Japan. I looked online and it seems iPhone just dominated the market so it wasn't because of the court case years back. Anyway I found an actual bank, got some money out and managed to go in the right direction and get to a Tokyo wonder site which was in a booklet on Tokyo museums. It turned out to be a small art gallery with not much to see. There was a crossing there where everyone crossed in all directions at the same time but it looked too small to be the famous crossing so I walked towards the train station and found it there. I went up into Starbucks for a better view and took photos and a bit of video for a couple of crossings. It was quite fun seeing so many people cross at once in all directions although some like myself afterwards were tourists. I went to the train station and got a train on the circle line to Akihabara and went to a phone shop to buy the phone. I tried it out a bit and it seemed OK, maybe a bit slow so I asked if there was an instructions manual but it came in a plastic bag with a charger and screen wipe. The man told me the signal also wouldn't work abroad for phone calls. Still it worked on WiFi and I tried out the music and that worked so worst case I had an mp3 player so I bought it and headed back to the hostel getting some food on the way. I ate and set up a couple of things on the phone then I headed to my old hostel to see if there was poker drinking a can of 9% Asahi on the way. I got a bit lost but when I arrived around 10 past 9 there was none of the poker people so I used the computer a bit but it was so slow and I gave up and went back to my hostel to download more onto the phone and then went to sleep.
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