Shinjuku (新宿区) and Shibuya (渋谷区)

So many memories are coming back about this place, just not any of the navigational skills. Trying to walk out of the correct end of Shinjuku station for example I got completely wrong. I walked out of the correct end, I pointed to the correct place for where I wanted to go on the map at the exit, and then when I saw the outside, I got cold feet and walked in exactly the wrong direction. After circling the (not small) station, I found what I was looking for.

Yodabashi was able to provide on all fronts. I got to look at all the latest cameras (just some $7k cameras that are easily accessible to the public). One of my travel companions got to listen to all the headphones that they’d ever heard of. For the headphones, the $10k model was kept in a box out of reach though. Possibly still accessible if asked nicely.

After adoring other cameras for long enough, I finally remembered that I too have a camera. Embarrassingly enough, it was also already late enough for us to find a convenient sky scraper and enjoy the sunset. And while skyscrapers feel solid enough, this one didn’t seem to be holding awfully still for the long exposure times. Either that or I kept on picking up the bumps from the people walking past.

In Shibuya, we made the bad mistake of walking into a gaming arcade, watching people mashing buttons at speeds that didn’t seem to have any basis in physics, and decided we needed to try this ourselves. When we finally made it out (to go to the next one), the time kind of struck us, and we quickly started to look up when the last train home was (to check whether we even still had time to go to another arcade). ¥900 poorer, we were letting the cold air outside cool us off from the high that seemed to accumulate ever since we stepped foot in the first arcade.

Of course this also means that we got back late enough that tomorrow’s planning is again tomorrow’s problem.