Had another nice breakfast downstairs and went out for the day. We took the subway over to Sengakuji for the first touristy thing. The station near the hotel was in the basement of a small shopping mall.
Sengakuji is a shrine devoted to the 47 samurai who avenged the unjust death of their lord. There's a fantastic movie called "Chushingura" which is based somewhat on the kabuki play which was made about the event. Of course the kabuki play came out right after the events themselves, and as you can imagine the names of those involved were all changed. Ah, anyway, after the 47 men took the life of the man responsible for their own lord committing seppuku, they then took their own lives in the same ritual as they did not wish to tarnish the memory of their lord by fighting against the law. That's my own poor, gaijin explanation of the events. The story is also referred to as "The 47 Ronin", since the men had no new lord to whom they had sworn allegiance.
Tokyo Tower was quite close to the shrine, so we decided to wander in that direction. It became apparently within a block, though, that the tower was a good distance away so we went over there in a taxi. Oddly, no beams from space or demons from hell showed up while we were there. There are two observation decks. It's a popular fieldtrip site for school kids, but they only go as far as the first deck. We paid the full fare, of course. You must get the elevator for the top deck from a spot on the lower deck. We took the time to look out over the city. It was hazy, but a remarkable view all the same. The video I have of the tower is clearly delinated by the noise level. When we're on the lower level you can't hear anything but the excited calls of children as they look through the windows. Suddenly in one view change all of that sound disappears and my friends can be heard quietly talking. heh.
From here we decided to head to Shinjuku as there looked like there was some good shopping near the subway station when we went through earlier. As I recall we had a late lunch near the station. I had a spicy, cold noodle soup which the waiter insisted was called raymen .. ramen would be 'rahmen' .. he insisted on using a long 'a' sound though. It was fantastic and banished the last of my tension-stomach issues.
After poking around in some of the stores and taking in the view, we headed out towards the outer edges of the city to Nakano station. We took a cab and just had him drop us off at the station. The purpose for going out here was that one of us had heard there was at least one really good animation cel shop in a mall there. The malls in Japan are often covered, but with the ends open to the elements. Such was the case with this one. The stores held all kinds of things to intrigue you as you wandered by them, and some interesting food was being served. We found several cel shops upstairs. I bought some cels (they were cheap!) and picked up a laserdisc set of "Gunbuster" AKA "Aim for the Top!" just in case it never came out on DVD here in the States. It wsa a special boxed set anyway. We grabbed some sushi at an ala carte place. Low quality sushi, but very affordable. The plates slide by on a conveyor belt and you're later charged by the number and color of the plates. (anything on a blue plate might be 200 yen, for instance)
I think we planned on getting more food later, but I can't remember if we did or not. I remember we stopped often at the AM/PM store which was a block from the hotel. It's a convenience store and they got me hooked on custard pockets I can't get now. :(