Ueno zoo and Akihabara

Yesterday we went back to Ueno park again to go to the zoo. I thought it would have been quite small since it is in the middle of the city, and we could have spent the afternoon in a museum, but we ended up spending most of the day there because it was so big. There were loads of animals, including giant pandas, and James was happy that they had penguins. They had red pandas too, which I think were my favourite.

After that we went to our first "restaurant", which was just a little booth in the park selling noodles. It was weird because you ordered your noodles from a machine and got a ticket. We both ordered the only thing I knew that was vegetarian, which was basically noodles in a stocky soup with fried tofu on top. They were ok but James wasn't into them too much, and the tofu was sweet and weird.

Then we were just going home because we were knackered because of the heat and walking around, but we seen some shops across the road and James needed to buy a belt, so we went and had a look. We found this shop that sold loads of cool toys, and anime/gaming stuff, and spent ages in there just looking, but we'll probably go back and buy stuff there. We also found a market street where James bought a belt for about £3.50. They sold nice-looking Yukata too (like kimono but simpler to wear) for about £25 so we'll probably go back there and buy stuff too. We need to go back to the Ueno area anyway to go to the Tokyo museum and Science museum.

After that we just headed home and fell asleep. We're going to bed really early at night and waking up early in the morning, but trying to fix it so we can go out in the evenings.

Today we decided to go to Akihabara, which is the electronics centre, as well as the anime and manga (comics and cartoons) centre. It was really great, our first taste of the busy city side of Tokyo, since we've only done the chilled out places so far.

We just spent the day milling around the shops and arcades, it was a lot of fun. We both really wish we could read Japanese because of the amazing selection of manga available. We found a shop selling English translated manga but it was even more expensive than it is the the UK. We got lunch in a Burger King, but ended up going to a cool sushi restaurant later. We didn't order much, but what we did order was amazing, by far better than even the stuff Oko sells. It was cheap too, coming to 1,400 Y for both of us, including 2 drinks each.

We haven't really been spending much money, but we're starting to treat ourselves and we're planning on getting ourselves some presents. We got some amazing mochi today at this stand, and ended up going back later to buy some more it was so good. Way better than Yo Sushi's, plus they had all different flavours.

We were going to go to a maid cafe today to try it out, because Akihabara is famous for them, but we were tired and not really feeling into it, so we'll leave it for another day. I looked it up online and we're better going to a different place than originally planned anyway. That will definitely be a treat though because they're quite expensive, but so cheesy and Japanese I think we need to try it once.

Tonight we're just planning on chilling out, and hopefully getting to bed later in the evening. We've had lots to eat today, but we might wander out later for a snack anyway. I don't know if I've mentioned, but the corner store nearby, 7-11, sells lots of ready made Japanese food and sandwiches and things, and I think they're open 24 hours, despite the name.

Anyway, going to go chill. We don't really know where we're heading tomorrow, but possibly into the Imperial Palace, but we'll see, and hopefully we'll update again soon.