23rd Nov 2006

Haha! Today is a National Holiday. Hurrah!
Tried to do some coursework this morning … didn’t get much done. I am mainly waiting around my room because an Imperial College friend who moved to Australia 2 years ago is happening to visit Japan on some conference and is staying on a few more days to sightsee and see friends…well there’s only two of us here but hey.

I get a call from Mike, Marc’s friend, that he was waiting for Marc to turn up from Tsukuba where he was doing his conference thing. We decide we should meet up and wait for marc around Akihabara (apparently, Akiba, for short). So, at about 5pm, I make my way to Tokyo station…well yurakucho station (As it’s on my line) then give Mike a call and he manages to find me. We take a little walk from Tokyo station to Akiba from Yurakucho station…which doesn’t take more than 20 mins. Think I’ll have to spend some time getting lost in Tokyo some time so that I get more orientated so I don’t have to take the metro every where. Anyway we get to Akiba and find a coffee shop to sit in to wait for a call from Marc. The last that Mike heard is that he was made to give an impromtu lecture at round about 1pm…but it’s 7 something and we still haven’t heard anything. We continue to wait. At quarter past 8 Mike gets a call from Marc. Which he promtly hands to me and (as he legs it off to the loo) and I speak to a very confused marc who was obviously expecting mike. I don’t think it has really helped his day… I mention that it’s me (which calms him slightly) and we work out that he’ll be where we are in about an hour…so we continue to sit in the coffee shop (which weirdly seems to shut at about 9pm…because it’s a holiday apparently) and then walk a short walk to the station…and wait patiently at the gates for him.

Marc seems to have had a bit of a traumatic day. But he did win a prize and some yen to go with it to make up for it slightly…anyway from ticket buying to getting through ticket gates everything happens to be conspiring against him slightly…
We go for dinner…at ‘sky dog’ some kind of mythical creature in japanese mythology…have a big dinner…with sushi…and meat skewers. And a few beers…Mike kindly pays for the whole night…which is very nice…then we head home…