(Yes, that is Rhonda waving at the base of the Tokyo Dome.)
After breakfast at Mister Donut, we made our way to the Tokyo Dome gift shops, where we proceeded to splurge on Yomiuri Giants merchandise. I found out being a L or XL in America translates to "get the biggest shirt they have." I forget what the actual size was, but it was basically equivalent to a XXL. But in the end, I got a sweet Giants jersey with sewn-on lettering, with a hat to match. Rhonda got a Giabbit, which is a "Giants rabbit" and the Giants' mascot. You have to see it to understand.
We also visited the Tokyo Baseball Hall of Fame.
I took a picture with the jersey of the all-time home-run king, the immortal Sadaharu Oh.
It was very busy around the Tokyo Dome because the baseball stike in Japan had just ended (the first ever) and the Giants were hosting the Hanshin Tigers. That's sort of like visiting the Bronx when the Yankees are in town playing the Red Sox. I wanted to go to a game but we knew we didn't have time.
We ducked out of the rain and into one of the adjoining buildings. There was a small arcade and one of the games was from Konami and was like DDR, but was a martial arts game. Think about a cross between DDR and Tae Bo. Rhonda played it until she was completely worn out. I have video but no pictures, so I'll have to post something later.
Did I mention the rain? The weather our entire trip was brutal. The papers say it was the hottest September in Tokyo in about eighty years. It was hot, sticky, and constantly rainy. (Rhonda picked up an umbrella at AM/PM for 400 yen, or $4. I tried to stick it out without an umbrella, but eventually I caved and went to Eddie Bauer and bought myself an umbrella. And, of course, the rain stopped.)
There was a huge shopping center near Tokyo Dome. We tried to pick a restaurant with a picture menu while avoiding KFC and McDonald's, but we couldn't agree on anything. Instead, we found a grocery store and loaded up on sushi, drinks, and chicken karage from the deli.
After stuffing ourselves silly, we took the subway to Ginza, which is sort of the Beverly Hills of Tokyo. We really only had a couple destinations there, the first of which was the Sony Building.
It's a huge showroom of Sony's cutting-edge products, many of which are not for sale here or even in Japan. For some reason, there was a BMW in there.
This is the PSX, Sony's attempt at making the PlayStation2 a set-top entertainment center.
And there were cute robot pooches that served no practical purpose.
They also have a PlayStation floor where you can play games for free. You can even make requests as to what you want to play.
By the time we left Sony and visited the Nissan Building, we were both getting a little irritable. We made a quick stop to buy tickets to Tokyo DisneySea at the Tokyo Disneyland ticket center in Ginza, then headed back to Shinjuku.
We did some more shopping in Shinjuku, but alas, there weren't any more pictures. I think I had got tired of lugging the cameras around and left them in the room.
All the pictures from Tokyo can be found here.
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