It's Sunday and as i write this, I am staring at the subway map hoping for inspiration to jump up and hit me as to where to explore today.

Yesterday, I was at Shibuya and Harajuku having walked from the first to the second with the sole purpose of going to the 100 yen shop, which for those not well-versed with the Japanese monetary system is about the equivalant of one dollar. (US). I was also tempted to stop at a Hello Kitty exhibition at a museum on the top floor of one of the department stores just for the value of saying I'd been to it and seeing people's shocked expressions back home but i decided it wasn't worth the 700 yen entry fee.

A note about 100-yen stores: If you've been to a dollar store in whatever country you're from, trust me, it's nothing like one in Japan. Think of the 1.99 store in Singapore, except maybe 10 times the size and with 100 times the variety of items. It's great. This time, I picked up mostly food. I'm a big fan of 100-yen stores because unlike the 1.99 store's premise that if you're going to spend anything as paltry as 1.99 on an item, you might be persuaded to buy tons of useless junk along the way, you actually get useful things in the 100-yen store.

Unfortunately now that all my "errands", which consisted visits to manga and 100-yen stores, have been completed, I find myself with no plans for the day. My brief foray into the insane world of Shibuya on a saturday has left me somewhat turned off crowds. Tokyo on a weekend is pretty much amazing, you'll never see so many people in one place. And then you'll wonder, if there are all these people here, and there are 20 other places which are probably as packed, where do all these people live when they're not here? No wonder, housing in tokyo is usually tiny and expensive.

I also got stopped about 6 times in Shibuya by people trying to convince me to: a)patronise their karaoke, b) buy something or other, c)ask for directions, d)conduct a survey. Now, I know I look Japanese but do I have this "please stop me" sign on my forehead. It's even funnier when I tell them I don't speak Japanese in japanese so that they'll go away.

And speaking of being randomly accosted, at about nine last night I decided to wander down to the main area of Roppongi, where I live, to get some food. The problem being Roppongi is the night life district of foreigners in Tokyo. When I got picked up by no less than 3 different people within the span of 30m of so, I decided that hanging around the area alone was not such a good idea on a Saturday night and went to the grocery store and then home :-p

Which brings me back to the first point, I'm home now and staring at the subway map wondering where to go. If I stay home, I'll feel like i'm wasting one of my few weekends in Tokyo, but if I go out i'll have to fight the crowds. *grin* People would probably kill to have this kind of decision to make.