Creature Comforts and knitty goodness

Home early this evening thanks to the hurricane - just lots of rain and a creaking hotel at the moment, but I think it's due to get worse later so we're staying in the hotel. I checked with the desk this morning before we went out: [as we can't understand the Japanese weather channel and the BBC hasn't been bothered to update the latest for 24 hours...]

"Today's weather" I said to the reception woman [by way of setting the subject before I embarked on broken Japanese/English with pantomime hands]. "Aah yes" she said, before I could begin; "it will be rain with hurricane in evening. Thank you." - not much more to be said really I suppose!

Last night we were supposed to be going to the Shabu-Shabu restaurant that Bob and Charlotte go to in Lost in Translation. However the boy translated the words "put the translation book in your bag" to mean "throw the translation book on the bed" and so we ended up outside the restaurant for 5 minutes before decided that we weren't confident enough to try such specialist eating without a book to at least give the waiting staff some idea of what we wanted.

I was all for throwing in the towel and getting rice balls from the 7-11 on the 2nd floor of our hotel , but the boy convinced me to try again. We ended up at Hobgoblin - a British pub just round the corner. It was SO GOOD! In photos of Tokyo you can often see long vertical stripes of neon signs down buildings - these are usually advertising what is on each floor - so our pub was on level 3. It's quite strange - you go into what looks like an apartment close and get in the lift. Then the doors open on Level 3 and it's a british pub!

Also on my travels I found Japanese Corn Flakes - not bad! So breakfast is sorted.

A few shots of the Shibuya crossing just 2 mins walk from our hotel. Photos don't really cover how it is here - it's so busy, and there's a giant TV screen at every side so there's noise noise noise constantly competing for your attention, plus people standing shouting adverts for Karaoke bars on the streets, and cool-as-ice Japanese kids everywhere smoking and exuding 'I am so cool' attitude all over the pavements.

Every so often we walk past a place where the automatic doors slide open and there's all these middle-aged couples playing something in an arcade type environment that involves trays and trays of ball-bearings - it's overwhelming smoky, and there's a pumping techno beats - what's that all about?

This is all the information we can get from the weather channel - does this mean the hurricane gets bigger?!

This morning:
We embarked on our first train journey and went off to Shibuya this morning. The train was quite easy - there's an English tannoy on the train to tell you the next station, time of arrival, which side the doors will open on etc. So efficient! The problems only come with the approx 50 exits to every station ...

I managed to find Okadaya relatively easily, and oh, it was bliss! Spent quite a bit :) And forgot to mention - yesterday in Tokyu Hands they had this yarn that said "Shetland Yarn", then "Made in England" and had a British logo... I couldn't take a photo unfortunately because everyone is very uptight about any photos being taken - I even asked in Okadaya but she said no :( You'll just have to take my word for it that it was cool.

Here's all my goodies:

An amigurumi kit for making a frog and a double-ended crochet hook with a different size at each end.


Some Hello Kitty yarn - which is 100% Acrylic but I just couldn't resist!


Some more Tokyu Hands fun stuff - and a baby Pink Panther that I finally won at the UFO catchers! It may have been easier as it was a child's UFO Catcher [I assume as I had to kneel on the floor to use it] but I'm not fussy at this stage!

Enough of this lovely un-dyed 100% wool [which is so so soft] for a jumper. I even managed to ask the woman in Japanese for balls from the store room as there wasn't enough on the shelf.

When I say Japanese I do mean I said the number 12 then visually illustrated that there was only 9 on the shelf - I dont mean flawless fluent beautiful Japanese - but I got the point across :0)

And 6 balls of this merino wool - the shades are just sumptious - so delicate - I think it's going to be a scarf. I have my Jaywalkers with me but I'm just not feeling the love so I needed another project as I haven't knat for days.

And finally another amigurumi book with the cutest little animals, and a book demonstrating all the stitches that Japanese charts use in their patterns. I got these from Kinokuniya bookshop in Shinjuku [all the knitting books are on the 2nd floor [down one from the floor you come in at] and left from the escalators - they're in the middle of the 3 aisles coming from the wall]

Phew! Lotta writing - that's me for tonight. We're just back from a Sushi restaurant with the revolving bar - but more about that tomorrow.