Tokyo Midnight - (Day 5)

post from Mad About Shanghai on 15 November 2008 01:22:00 AM. © Mad About Shanghai

For Day 4, I decide to explore and have a feel of funky Tokyo instead of going to the outskirts of the city. After a quick visit to Shidome, the business district to of Tokyo. I went to Autobacs, one of the largest car accessories shop in Tokyo. After searching for on the train network, I finally found the stop on the train network. It was worth the travel time of 40 mins to the suburb.

For those interested, details of the shop can found here:

http://www.japanautopages.com/company/super-autobacs-tokyo-bay-shinonome.php

Thousands of car accessories available there from stereo sets to wheels to fragrance. For petrolheads out there, this place if highly recommended. There are a lot of highly modified cars parked outside their garage too.

Any trip to Tokyo isnt complete until a visit to Akihabara. Akihabara is to a geek what a candy store to a kid. Anything relating to mobile phones, games, spare parts and electronics can be found there. And its not just a few malls there. The whole stretch of the street is laden with megamalls for electronics.

I picked out the biggest mall there Yuishodo Akiba. If you are in a hurry or dont have the patience to explore the whole town. Go to this mall.

If you exit by the east side of Akihabara metro station, the building is right in front of you.

Nine storeys of everything you ever need from electronics to white goods. Cameras, mobile phones of every model were all decked out for customers to try before deciding. At the watch sections, I saw several mainland Chinese there buying Rolexes. I guess they must be going at a good price? Not only is the authenticity guaranteed, if you pay with your Union pay card issued by a bank in China, they would give you a further 5% off the already low price.

I spent quite a few hours there till dinner time. I went to Alice's work place and we picked a nice restaurant together with Sakkiko and Jenny, both her colleagues.

The food again, was just sumptuous!

The restaurant info can be found here: http://www.ramla.net/casual_restaurant/tofuro/index.cgi

After dinner, back at the hotel, while I was getting my luggage ready for my departure the next day. I sudenly felt my room shaking. I realised I could have been tired and dizzy and decided to rest for a while on the bed.

It took me a while to realised it was NOT me. I got up and look around to see my bunch of keys shaking. I soon hear people outside my room shouting and asking if they felt the building shaking. I received a call from Alice.

Yes! :S it was an earthquake. She assured me that Tokyo is just experiencing some after shocks from an earthquake some 120 km away and it should go away after a while without causing real damage to any buildings. I turned on the TV. The news confirmed that there was indeed an earthquake. 120 km away..some people were not so fortunate. I could see on TV some homes and shop being damaged quite seriously.

I decided to take a step of faith and turn in after some more packing. So much for my first "experience" of an earthquake.