Day 11 - Ginza and Vegan Restaurants

Waking up, still early, write for a bit, study for a bit, go to the nearest cafe, Turret Cafe, nice coffee, quite popular with tourist crowd, but a very small, only coffee , no cakes type of establishment, makes me wonder

The only plan today is to meet with my guitar teacher, so don't think about venturing far, but still got so much time to kill until 2pm.

Decide to head towards Ochanamizu to get him a small present, instead notice Akihabara music store is better located, so just walk slowly towards it.
As I arrive to the shop, realize it also has a studio attached to it, taking a few notes for later. Get a fancy leather strap and a pick with a british flag, why not... got it Tax free as well so that was a nice bonus.

Decide to stay for a bit more and try a few nylon electric guitars, it sounds lovely to me, but again, buying a guitar on the first month of japan travels is suicide. Will be back on the last month.

Stay in Akihabara for a few more minutes, check the shops around, t-shirts with awful designs, toys with amazing detail and the rest of electronics. Pass by the used camera shop, but either all the lenses I wanted have sold out, or they moved it to another store downstairs.

Have another coffee nearby and decide to start walking through areas like Kanda and back towards Tokyo station, some more izakaya based streets are full of life during lunch time. The usual train tracks give a more cyberpunk metropolis feeling, and the sun starts to come out, as I think i might be dressed too warm for the day ahead.

Around 2pm, he arrives, taller than I expected, although with some heels on his spanish cowboy boots, dressed in a denim jacket, full of patches, cowboy belt, the typical metal dress code if you ever went to trash metal concert...
We head towards Ginza's vegan restaurant, Komeda is.

IPad menus on every table, order as much as you want, anytime... I get an avocado burger, some croquettes and then an iced coffee for dessert. We talk about the usual things, guitar, guitar, Tokyo and japan. UK and Europe, his travels, my travels ahead.

As he seemed eager to just spend the rest of the day, we head to another station and stop in Shibuya, I finally found a guitar shop that has those books I wanted.
Set it on the map, will be back later. Harajuku is a short walk away, and we get to see a few more vintage/random stores on our way, towards Omote Sando there's a small mall with Ikea, and more vegan ice-cream, only 50 yen a cone.

We sit on the roof terrace, overlooking Omote Sando, everyone around is a foreigner, but that's what Shibuya is as a district.

Time is getting closer to 6, he says there's a good park nearby, it's the Yoyogi Park, we pass by some live performers who just finish their set, he recognizes from half a note that he is playing in Drop C, I can't even notice as the music ends before we get closer. I drop a few coins and the musician hands me a flyer.

The park is attached to Shinjuku Gyoen, where one of the central temples in Tokyo exists, but that part is closed, the rest of the park is open 24hr, and a lot more people just sit in the nature, or enjoy the ponds. We chill for a bit, and decide to grab another vegan meal nearby.

It's vegan ramen this time, I regrettably choose the spiciest version. Even though I finish the Ramen, the soup is unbearable, so I leave it on the side. We get another dessert and time to head back. He says he also needs to go again towards Ginza, so we catch another train and arrive to Hibiya station. As we walk through massive streets, he remembers there's another good rooftop, at Ginza Six.

It's open until 11pm and offers amazing views across Tokyo, the tower, Skytree and every street below. A lot of romantic couples around us. Good place for that. As we go around the rooftop, there is a small shinto shrine on the rooftop. It's cute that everything can have a shinto shrine, and so it does... we bow to the spirits of the shopping mall and decide to head downstairs, as we feel a few drops.

The walk towards the station, of 10 minutes or so, was done under a torrential rain that neither of us have planned before.

We arrive at the station where we started the day, I catch one tube just not to walk for 10 minutes in the rain, and he catches the Train to Saitama, we plan on another proper shoot and maybe a lesson face to face. But let's see, he's busy... I'm not that much.

I also will catch him on a concert night around.

Good day, doing much but also nothing. Those are sometimes the greatest days..