Sunday, July 10. After all the train trips, we will calm down a little today. It is necessary to finish the laundry of the trip. The machine works as soon as we get up. It took a little effort and Google Lens to master the machine the first days, but we are now experts at it. And, when the weather is nice, the laundry dries in a few hours on the balcony. Samuel often watches the balcony across the street when he gets up: if the space is full of laundry, after a quick confirmation from the weather app, the laundry is on its way!
Today, an important activity to do: it’s the 10th of the month, which means that tickets for the Ghibli museum for the month of August are on sale from 10am. As Japan is still more or less closed to foreigners, only the domestic sales network is working. Samuel goes to the local Lawson (or rather, to one of the local Lawson) to try the ticket machine (it’s called Loppi machine). But after a few minutes, it is clear that the tickets are only on sale on a website managed by Lawson. Back home, call for help to Eyquem, mobilization of all the mobiles: the website is 100% in Japanese. It is necessary to create an account, and the name must be written in Kanji and Kana. We try, but the site understands that we are foreigners. It is now necessary in Katakana and in Kana. Eyquem is able to write in Katakana, and Google Translate helps us to approximate Samueru Dantin in Kana. After a few tries, we manage to create the account. We reserve the seats. And we have to return to the Lawson to pay the tickets. Feverishly, Eyquem, Gadea and Samuel go to the Lawson. It is necessary first to enter the information (number of cell and name) in the machine, which prints us a sheet. We give it to the cashier, we pay, and the tickets are printed. Everything works: we have the tickets for the Ghibli museum.
After a lunch at home, we decide to go to Shinjuku: first stop the post office for an important shipment. While Samuel is making the transaction, the kids and Noe find a very cute Suika penguin and decide to take a picture. They didn’t read, at the entrance, the note that formally forbids any photo taking. A little hubbub ensues in the post office, until the person speaking a little English manages to ask them to stop. We continue to walk around the Golden Gai, a night district of Shinjuku full of bars and restaurants, but mostly bars. We know the place by reputation, but also through the series “Midnight Diner” which is a Japanese series much appreciated by Noe and Samuel, a series of small episodes full of everyday life and humanity. During the day, it’s less active, maybe we’ll do it again at night, between adults? On the way, we pass by the Hanazano shrine, an important shrine we visited in part at the beginning of our stay.
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| Illegal pictrure! |
The children wish then to pass by a bookshop specialized in mangas (in Japanese). We go there. There are really many series of manga, we know a few them. One of the main problems to find them, the classification system. It comes by series and maybe by author in a lexicographic way, but the classification, possibly alphabetical, does not help us. To finish, we will buy some Gyozas and go home to spend a “Stranger Things Finale” evening.
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