Odayaku is near Odakyu

After a hectic number of days on the road sandwiched by the Gobi and the Taklimakan deserts the end was near as we arrived at Urumqi. I was looking forward to getting on to Tokyo.

The flight was uneventful albeit I took some photos of some beautiful cloud formations only to learn that it was the seed of Typhoon Yagi. On arrival in Tokyo, the body awaken to an environment of cleaniness. After checking into The Shiba Park Hotel, we ventured out to a ramen house and tucked in some delicious fresh ramen. With the body fed, a couple of us decided to take a walk around the environs. The Tokyo Tower was just behind the hotel. We walked passed a couple of homeless sleeping in large copier boxes.

The program for the next morning was a half day tour of the city. We visited places like the Meiji Shrine, the Imperial Palace, the Diet (parliament) and ended up at Asakusa. The visit to the temple was short. It's the 100 small shops along an alley that took most of the time. Eventually we were dropped off at Ginza. The rain began to change the day. There were those who needed to change money and there were those who wanted to shop. We decided to take a train on the Marunouchi line to Shinjuku. This is a old haunt of mine when I was working in Japan. Pauline's mission was to find a particular craft shop there. Armed with a hand written transcript of Sarah's directions, I forewarned Pauline that I may not succeed in taking her to the destination.

Stepping out of Shinjuku JR station the instructions pointed that a large department store, Odakyu, was to be on the right and we are to be on the opposite of the road. There is an alley with a DVD store, a watch shop and an adult store. This craft store is opposite these shops.

When we surfaced onto Shinjuku, through 1 of the 16 exits, indeed the large department store was on the right. I thought I am on the right track. The problem was there were numerous alleys with either a watch shop, a DVD shop or an adult shop, but not the 3 stores in the same alley. We stop and asked 2 girls for directions and they thought we wanted to go to an adult shop. Eventually when they worked out that we wanted to go to a craft shop, they pointed us to Mitsukoshi. It was a compromise but a good one. At the store, I asked a guy for directions to this elusive craft shop that Sarah's been, but the said Mitsukoshi is it. Eventually in a typical Japanese animated gesture, he remembered that there was one - Odayaku. He drew me a map and with the correct orientation, I manage to find our way there and resulted in one very happy wife. I knew then that my trip to Tokyo was complete. We spent almost the entire day there.

The next day was the same. We took a train on the Oedo line and went back to Odayaku. You would think that it's easy to find now that we've been. We were lost again. After a couple of stops for directions, we were back at the store, waiting for them to open. After 3 hours and numerous selection of coloured beads, we returned to the hotel in readiness to go home. What a thought.