Retail Therapy Day - Friday 2nd October

Today was a bit of a rest day with a slow start by all with Jo , Char and myself venturing out to the local shops in Shinjuku. However I should give some context to the district  where we are staying - Shinjuku.

Shinjuku  is one of the 23 city wards of Tokyo , but the name commonly refers to just the large entertainment, business and shopping area around Shinjuku Station.

Shinjuku Station is the world's busiest railway station, handling more than 3.64m passengers per day. The station itself has 36 platform with 200 exits and a train leaving every 3 seconds.Another 17 platforms (51 total) can be accessed through hallways to 5 directly connected stations, without surfacing outside.Here's a documentary on the station

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x12ww8o_worlds-busiest-train-station-shinjuku-full_travel

Besides the station it is home to numerous restaurants,skyscapers,red light district,major department and electronic stores.

Back to the shopping outing, first stop was to the fabric shop with 6 levels of all types of fabric for the carft and sewing community at a good price and quality compared to Australia .Jo brought some material to make another quilt like the one she made for her mum and Charlotte brought some for a pin up board in her office at home.

Next it was off to Gap and Uniqlo again for the sales and it was major chaos with lots of Chineses in the stores due to their national public holiday to celebrate Mao's birthday . Like a swarm of bees to a honey pot. Both the Japaneses and Chinese absolutely love their shopping. 

We eventually made it out alive with the clothes purchases and headed off to Isetan building to grab some lunch. This is one of the many department stores that have a terrific range of food which we have visited numerous times over the years. Eventually arrived home about 4 pm to relax and put our feet up and have a few drinks whilst Dan headed off to a rock climbing club about 30 mins away.

Tonight we opted to go to one of the many loacl restaurants and have their Okonomiyaki, which is a Japanese savoury pancake containing a variety of ingredients. The name is derived from the word okonomi ,meaning "what you like" or "what you want" , and yaki meaning grilled or cooked.

The restaurant was a cook it your self however she did give us a littel bit of hand to get started

Dan did the best master chef out of all of us for the night . Next it was off to the shops again with Dan and Jo going to the climbing shop where Daniel purchased a climbing bag with Yen that Ross and Diane gave him for his birthday. Char and I opted to go to Loft and buy some travel security gear for both Europe and Africa. Dan and Jo were waiting for us outside the camping store when we returned

Next it was a brief stop to our favourite fruit stall for a stick of pineapple( you may be able to see the square water melon at the back between Jo and Dan that they grow here)

On the way home through the station tunnels we came across a large display.. the Japanese always do things over the top