After leaving the East Gardens we headed for Takebashi station.  With my handy Subway guide book, we figured out we needed to transfer three times to get to Hamamatsucho station, from there a short walk to the Pokemon Center to get some souvenirs for our kids.  What had we gotten ourselves into?!

Here’s a tip, the smaller stations in the subway system are, shall we say, a little different experience than Shinjuku or Tokyo station, or even some of the medium sized ones like Ueno or Akihabara.  Maybe the Yamanote line stations are just better, I dunno.

Regardless, we exercised the Suica cards, transferred at Otemachi, then onto the Yamanote at Tokyo station bound for Hamamatsucho.

Street view near Hamamatsuchou Station (浜松町駅)

Once off at Hamamatsucho, we were in yet another world.  It’s sort of strange how the different areas of Tokyo really do have quite distinct atmospheres.  Here was what I’d call a “middle urban” area.  Not West Shinjuku to be sure, not the “officialness” of the area around Tokyo station, but just a fairly wide street with a lot of average looking shops and cafes.  The “world trade center” is here, but even that is a medium sized building compared to what we’d seen.

Walking on down, we finally arrived at our destination, only after having to walk further than we hoped for a crossing, and turn back.

Pokemon!

Really the “Pokemon Center” is nothing but a store, not a particularly large one, either.  Although it is fairly spacious, and not all that busy.  Like a big version of the Disney store or something.  We found a few things the kids would like, made our purchase, and then realized, we were hungry! It was around 3pm by this time.

Chirashi Sushi (散らし寿司)

Lucky for us the building had some restaurants.  We located a sushi place therein, and had our first taste of real Japanese sushi.  Two thumbs up from me.  The ice cold green tea was thick and tasty. Uogashi Nihonichi, which turns out to be another chain….  Can we pick em or what?

I pulled out the map and realized we were close to one of the spots I had planned to visit later in the week, Zojoji Temple and the nearby Tokyo tower.  Unfortunately it meant a walk up the other side of the station, and then back down again when we were finished.  We looked at each other, at our feet, and said, “Well, we’re here, right?”

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