Recapping the last couple of days... Saturday

Saturday started out with a pretty cool running route... just a few blocks from our apartment is a major road that runs right into the Imperial Palace downtown. So I ran down there and did a lap around the palace. I think it was around 7 miles round trip and a very cool run. Plus it was kind of cool and overcast on Saturday morning (a harbinger of things to come). We'll have to go tour the gardens after Jenn gets here.

After that, Saturday's mission was a telephone for our Vonage box since we did a bang-up job planning and put ours in the sea shipment (that will be here in a few weeks). Since I had nothing else to do and some time to kill, I headed to Akihabara or "Akihabara Electric Town." This is the area of Tokyo that is known for electronics sales with 6-7 floor stores of nothing but electronics. It is hard to describe how overwhelming these stores are in a number of ways - the number of people, the number of products, the noise, everything. These stores all had everything from $10 headphones to the very latest, ultra high-end, cameras and tvs, things we likely won't see in the US for a while. There are also stores dedicated only to gaming - PS3, Wii, xbox, etc. - with entire floors for each system.

From my stanpoint, it was bit like using a sledge hammer to drive a nail since every store I went in had a limited selection of telephones (strangely enough). I think maybe it is due to the number of cell phones here. But I eventually found one that will fill our needs - it seems to have a lot of features, but I can't tell for sure since I can't read the directions. I figured out how to turn it on, turn it off and dial with it though. So that's all that matters.

And do you remember I said that it was kind of cool and overcast Saturday morning? Well, it has pretty much been raining since Saturday afternoon. And as those of you who have lived in NYC or somewhere similar can attest, living in a "walking" city when it rains kind of sucks. I made a grocery run Saturday afternoon and it was fun walking back with the umbrella in one hand and bags in the other.