On the agenda today was a visit to the Imperial Palace - the residence of Japan's Emperor Akihito, on this his official birthday, and, as far as I understand, one of only two days per year that he greets his nation in person.

As we left the subway we were gently swept along with the crowd as it headed towards the palace, on the way collecting our free Japanese flag for waving at the emperor. We queued for a little while to get through the security checks - metal detectors, searches - even confiscating Owen's plastic bottle of Green Tea, and then walked up to the palace.

After 40 or so minutes, the emperor showed up and the crowd went wild, waving their flags at him. Two middle-aged Japanese men behind us had a flag and each hand and were shouting ‘BANZAI’ at the top of their voices, sounding, it must be said slightly crazed; quite incongruous to the way they looked. After a few minutes, the crowd went quiet, the tiny figure in the distance said a few words (which we of course didn‘t understand), followed by more cheering, waving and ’BANZAI'. After which, the crowd then began to disperse, us with them, our experience in this Japanese tradition now complete.

After lunch (at a Italian / Japanese restaurant in Shibya - eating sausage and chips and drinking Thai beer; how about that for multicultural!), we headed back to the marvel that is Tokyu Hands (Japanese Site - although like most of Tokyo, sprinkled liberally with English).

‘Go to Tokyu (not Tokyo) Hands, a sort of hobbyist department store (and much, much more). if you like the retail experience, and like any of the sorts of things I like, an initial visit to Tokyu Hands is good for about four hours of in-depth browsing and a solid denting of wallet-plastic.’ (from here, also archived here)

That's William Gibson's summary of Tokyu Hands (Wikipedia) - a pretty accurate description, but one that doesn't quite do justice to the how insane the place really is! For a start, you need to know that the shop has 7 floors which are divided into 3 sub floors, each representing a different department.

I could have easily spent more than the 40 odd minutes I did spend in the hobby materials section alone. It must be said, that it is a VERY GOOD THING that this shop doesn‘t exist in the UK - I’d be bankrupt in a matter of days! Example find: Packing tape covered in Japanese cherry blossom print (perfect as the packaging states ‘for Packing and Lapping’).

Because it was New Year, they were celebrating with games on each floor, where you could win Tokyu Hands goodies; I myself won two packs of Tokyu Hands branded post-it notes!

All in all, utterly brilliant, and yes it really did take about 4 hours to do the whole place - by the end we needed the restaurant at the top to find enough energy to make it home!