A nice relaxing morning here at the hotel, we’re up, at breakfast and showered – then ready to walk out of the door at 9:00 for our 10:15 train.  Scanning our QR code tickets, the machine pops up a little seat information ticket – which explains everything you need to do when boarding and exiting the train.  Man, all these systems are so well organized and operated!  We arrived at the station really station early because Google Maps shows a Daiso one-coin store there, but once in the station, we’ll be damned if we can find it.  Those stupid maps!  I swear.

Well, now we have a ton of time to kill before our train, so we hit a little coffee shop and slowly enjoy a nice cup of drip brewed coffee, before heading out to do some reconnaissance on the track location and strategic boarding!  We have reserved seats on the Green car – which is the VIP car – along with space for our “oversized” luggage – essentially so we don’t have to put the bags up overhead on the racks.  We’re not lifting those things up there, no way, no how!

After our reconnaissance, we start thinking about lunch.  The train arrives in Tokyo at 12:45 which is too late for lunch for us – so we peruse our options and end up with a couple of sandwiches (Pork Katsuo with miso, a ham sandwich and a weird egg sandwich) plus a big beer and a bottle of wine, that comes complete with a little plastic glass!  These Japanese think of everything!

Making our way to the platform, we are in position to board (there are specific positions and ways to line up to get on these trains!) and quickly organize ourselves and get settled in for our comfy train ride.  And it is totally great.  Comfortable, spacious, quick and easy at over 300 kph.  We enjoy our little lunch….

….and in no time are at the Tokyo train station standing in the taxi queue.  A 10 minute ride deposits us at the Tokyu Stay Shimbashi, our home for our last night in Tokyo.  It is too early to check in, of course, so we leave our bags and go out to explore the neighborhood looking for dinner ideas.  Oh boy!  Don’t know if you’d call this the red light district, but it is definitely the entertainment district!  There are bars on top of bars on top of bars – literally!  I mean every building is 5 or 6 floors and each floor has a different bar – with very interesting names!  This should be fun after dark.

Exploring our options, and marking a few on the map, we then go in search of a regular bar, finding a British Pub, of all things, that is open – but barely.  They are closing at 2:30, food is stopping at 2 (which is in 5 minutes) as the bartender tries to tell us in broken English.  We Google translate drinks only – which she then agrees to, reiterating, by writing it down, that they are closing at 2:30. We promise we will be gone before they are closed and she allows us to have our one drink.  They are serious about closing times here.  Probably because it is their only down time between lunch and dinner – and well – they also probably deserve a break.

After our beverage, consumed quickly enough to make the bartender happy, we meander through the streets some more, checking out everything, and wondering why Bar Frank opens at 17:40 and not oh, say, 17:30????  Then it is back to the hotel where we can check in.  The bags are already in the room (wow! Better than Gate 1!) and the room!  It is teeny tiny, but so well equipped – it is amazing how they fit everything in this compact space!  A washer/dryer combo, microwave, iron and board, mini refrigerator, flat top cooker, wet bar, all the equipment you’d need to cook and eat.  It’s crazy!  And perfect for us for one night. 

Later we wander out to find dinner, trying to go to one of the BBQ restaurants as we did in Osaka – even though we hate to eat at the same place, they have a wide assortment along with sashimi.  The first place we go to is the closest to the hotel and the girls wave us in and send us to a table.  But unfortunately the tablet doesn’t work, and we can’t get anyone’s attention to try to fix it.  Very frustrating – and totally unlike any experience we have had here to date.  So frustrating in fact that we just leave, because we aren’t going to sit there forever without being able to get anyone to help us.  Making our way down the street, past the “all you can drink” place (this is a big thing here, there are lots of them around, and they have a great menu, but we don’t want to spend the money on all you can drink when we have our drinks in the room) we end up at the other BBQ place we had spotted on our reconnaissance. You know, we think these are all the same places – a chain maybe?  Or they just steal the same menus and concepts?  Because they all have different names, but the same promo material and the same set ups.  We’ll never know!  But the food is good, and the selection is what we want.

This place is teeny though, there are maybe only 10 tables, and once again we’re escorted to a corner table and shown the tablet – only this one works, and we can choose our language – and we’re off to the races.  We get the sushi assortment, which is bigger and more expensive than the one in Osaka, we’re figuring because it is dinner maybe?  We also order these great little sausages and the squid again (hey, why mess with a good thing?).  As we are enjoying our drinks, the waiter brings by a plate of sardines, little patty looking things and bun type objects.  Um, we didn’t order this?  He explains it is Japanese appetizers.  Okaaaay. Oh well, nothing ventured, nothing gained.  If we’re charged, we’re charged. It’s our last night in Tokyo – we’ll go out with a bang!  Figuring we’re at a BBQ joint, we better grill all this – because, with no instructions, we’re going with our gut!  So grill we do – all by ourselves because this guy doesn’t have time to help – and we think our waitress in Osaka was used to tourists and just did the cooking for us assuming we’d be clueless!

At any rate, we munch on these very good crab or shrimp or some sort of cakes and the equally good little white buns with some sort of cheese or sauce filling.  We even eat the sardines, bones, heads, eyeballs and all.  They aren’t too bad – if you don’t think about it!  Next comes the cute little sausages that look like little octopus, served in a tin foil tray and the squid.  We pop all onto the grill and start our BBQ.  Ed mimics how the waitress the other day grilled the squid, by holding it up and letting the liquid drain out, then he cuts it up into rings and it ends up perfectly done.  It is one of the most tender, tastiest squid we’ve had.  The sausages are great too – especially as their little “legs” get charred and sort of crispy (of course another couple gets the sausages too, and they leave them in the tinfoil tray and put the whole thing on the grill….so….we may have done it wrong – but it was oh so good!).

The main event is the sashimi, though.  It is a HUGE tray of fish, 6 different kinds, including a newly flayed fish.  I have the video!  That thing was still moving – when you watch the video, that isn’t my hand shaking, that is the fish in its last death throes!  OMG.  But, hey, when in Japan….and it was some of the best fish ever!

Completely stuffed, we check out on the tablet and notice a fee line for “cover” – hmmmm…apparently those appetizers costs – but only about $3 USD each, so whatever.  And the sashimi was more expensive (still only about $13 USD), but it was almost double what we had before.  All in all, one of the most expensive meals we have had, but oh so worth it!

Back on the streets we wander through the crowds, heading to the hotel.  We divert down one of the side streets with all the bars and what a sight to behold.  If only we could have taken more pictures!  It just didn’t feel right to be snapping photos of all these girls standing out side the bars with signs with prices on them.  We couldn’t even Google translate, so we’ve no idea what the prices were for – we will assume massage….you assume what you want!  At one point, looking down the street, I decided I was the only woman on the street not wearing high heels and a nurses cap! Or a school girl’s uniform!  Entertainment, for sure.

With that, we headed back to the hotel for some movies and relaxation, and then our last sleep until we board our new (old) home, the Quest, for the next 40 days!