Toast and jam for breakfast. Destination today: to re-visit the Harajuku and Shibuya district and delve deeper into the backstreets. We have both agreed that our favorite places to visit in Tokyo so far were the fish market and Harajuku. The fish market is so different from anything we have ever seen or had the pleasure to document, you could spend a whole week there, if your stomach can handle it! You really get to know the local tradesmen and atmosphere that goes with such a busy market place. Harajuku in contrast offers current trends in fashion and art. There are some great little backstreets to explore and plenty of coffee-shops where you can watch the passers-by. In search of a cafe recommended in the Lonely Planet we found that the Bape cafe is not longer around! Not to be disappointed we settled for the Freshness Burger Company, Dave had a good ole cheese burger whilst I opted for a veggie one. You can’t eat Japanese food everyday…can you?

Following lunch we found one place that really stands out for us s a highlight so far; the Design Festa Gallery quietly positioned away from the main hustle and bustle of the Harajuku area. An artist’s studio complex, something that looks like it should belong in Berlin. Graffitied walls, personalised art studios, illustrations that spill onto the stairways and lovely white spaces with which to exhibit your work. We love these kind of places, somewhere that really gave a real feeling of what is happening in the Tokyo art and design scene.

Moving on from the Design Festa we walked down to Shibuya crossed the famous Shibuya crossing (several times) just so we could get loads of photographs of people crossing, it’s a pretty cool experience actually (photography geeks!) Deciding that we’d had enough of the pizazz going on in this area we once again resided to the friendly Sakura Hotel before going out in search of Sushi. With so many food choices it’s really difficult deciding on somewhere to eat that we know will offer the food we like and at a good price. Noodle bars, Japanese pubs, conveyor-belt style, street vendors and so on. We can safely say that we haven’t always made the best choices in this department with a 50/50 success rate! Settling on an underground sushi restaurant we were faced with food that we would never encounter back in the UK and tasted a few things we would not want to go through again! Helen’s stomach was turned upside down and Dave almost gagged! All part of the experience.

Tomorrow we are leaving the Tokyo metropolis behind to seek out a slightly more peaceful guesthouse based in the Mt Fuji area.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

Woke up to a constant drizzle today and read in the hotel that the bike tours for the Imperial Palace are on Sundays only and aren’t on when it rains either! You can hire bikes there without a tour but again not when it’s raining. So with waterproofs on, we walked along with all the other umbrellas to the Palace grounds in search of the Museum of Contemporary art. We’re based only a 10 minute walk from the Palace moat and main entrance, it would have been great to have witnessed this area on a clear and sunny day, it however it was still impressive in the drizzle. Upon arrival at the museum we discovered no thanks to any signage that it is closed for the entire week!

Hmmm we chose this museum as it is free entry and on our doorstep, the back up plan was to walk to a Lonely Planet recommended coffee spot. We’re still not getting our food choices right here, although the images definitely sell the food, after a few mouthfuls we’ve kind of thought not sure if this was the best choice! It’s all part of the fun we thinks! So after a slightly less appetising lunch we went in search of the @home cafe. Akihabara is like an up-market Blackpool on speed! There are young girls approaching people in the street dressed in maid outfits trying to entice you into the well known Tokyo maid cafe’s. We soon realised that the @home cafe was going to be along the same line. What an experience… With a 700yen per person sitting fee we still thought ‘yeah go-on then let’s give it a go’. We had our own maid who’s name was Michel…? She tried with poor English (although better than any attempt whatsoever we could make at Japanese!!) to entertain us, we only wish we had an interpreter with us as they refer to the men as “Master” and the ladies as “Mistress”, sing songs and play games with the guests. There were mostly young men in the cafe but a few couples with a few older men and women. It’s a little like a culture for the lonely as the maids become your best friend once you have paid the entrance fee.

After the surreal experience of Akiharaba we set off to the more fashion conscious areas of Harajuku and Shibuya. In extreme contrast here we have high-end designer shops and quirky artsy backstreets offering a taste of local fashion design, art and culture. Again we hit the after work, school-leaving crowd who love to shop! We passed through the international gymnastics centre, where Japan fashion week events are taking place and eventually found ourselves in the even more trendy Shibuya. Moving from area to area you really get the sense that places are broken up into clear districts, building-types and genres of shopping . We decided that we would come back here tomorrow to get a further taste of the area.

Later we stayed local to our Kanda area and went for some less-local cuisine opting for what appeared to be cosy little taverna offering Spanish food (noodles for breakfast, lunch and dinner can be difficult to stomach). What we had was an overpriced, small portioned meal which kind of left a foul taste in our mouths due the sting of the cost. Lesson to be learned there. So after a spell of emails, photo-editing and tasty chai bed-time reached the height of 11.30pm!

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)