JAPAN 2. Shibuya is for SHOPPING!

Found a Starbucks around the corner from my hotel! Gotta love it. A sign, for sure!

I'm staying in the downtown area, (I think) called Chuo-ku. The streets are wild...you can't tell when a street starts a name and changes it; and the bends and turns it takes make it almost impossible to navigate! You have to carry a card around with you in case you get lost and show it to a taxi driver so he can take you there! It's fabulous.

So off to the Kannon: Max takes me to Sensoji (also known as Asakusa Kannon Temple) by tube. What a great and clean system. The temple is located in Asakusa, a central part of the Shitamachi. Shitamachi ("downtown") is the old town of Tokyo. It's amazing. There are these MASSIVE wicker sculptures that I admire and Max points out that they are sandals for the gods!

Next we wander through all the shopping stalls. I found a few treasures! I was told to hold back because we were going to Shibuya to the famous "Oriental Bazaar". It's so cool. It's a department store-styled souvenir shop but with the most amazing little things that you can't find anywhere! I barely make it through the first few floors before we have to head back to our hotel area to meet our hosts.

Our hosts by the way are magic shop owners, Ton and Mama Onosaka. They own MagicLand. It's an "old styled" magic shop that is crammed filled, floor to ceiling with magic. I met Ton and Mama-san back in August during a convention called 31 Faces North (that's them when we took them to see Niagara Falls). They are SO nice and fun. Their son, Satoshi, is now helping to run the shop as Ton-san says he is "really retired now". But he continues to help Satoshi organize cool conferences like the one I'm working on Sunday.

We run into a dear friend of Max's at the shop called Tomohiro Maeda, a famous Japanese TV Magic celebrity! He and his wife are totally gracious and take us out to a fabulous restaurant around the corner for Korean BBQ! Scrumptious.

Must somehow find time to work tomorrow! But first, Max promises a quick run around Tokyo to find a very cool shop that he keeps talking about!