Third Day In Tokyo

 As much as I enjoyed this day, it was the hardest day there!

The heat was relentless. The heat in Tokyo felt different to the heat here. I looked at the forecasted temperatures for the day; the high was to be 35℃. It gets that hot and hotter here; it isn't easy, but I can manage to be outside for about half an hour without feeling sick. In Tokyo, however, the heat felt different. I felt that the heat wasn't just coming from the sun, but from the buildings and the pavement. When we were in crowds, I felt the heat coming off people, but that might have been my imagination!

The third day we wanted to visit Jinbucho, the booktown of Tokyo. There are about 150 bookstores, from stores selling new books to second-hand stores and even some with antique books. A book lover's paradise. Of course, most of the books were Japanese, but some stores had a good choice of English books.

We decided to walk to McDonald's for breakfast. 

The walk there was really nice, on a quiet side street. Maybe it was the time of day or just the fact that it was so different to the crowds from the day before, but I enjoyed that little walk.

The McDonald's was at the bottom of a large building, maybe an office block. The area around it was so nice, a lot of green!

A temple that we passed by

It was hard to believe that this was Tokyo until we came to a bridge that crossed over the train tracks!

Lots of green even with the massive buildings

Three different train tracks, two where the red trains are passing and one on the top right.

By the time we got to McDonald's, it was already hot! It was nice to step inside and cool down for a bit.

Breakfast.

After that, we made our way to Jinbucho.

We had to get on a bus and then walk a little bit. Even though it was still early, the heat was very intense by that time. I knew that I was going to struggle with the heat, but I didn't realise how much it was going to affect me! 

The first bookstore we stopped into was a new bookstore with lots of English books. I spent time looking but decided not to buy anything. The store had a cafe, so we sat in there for a while with cool drinks. That helped a lot. I think I was more worried about getting really sick and ending up in the hospital!

Walking along the street of Jinbucho was amazing, so many bookshops, so many places to explore!

Just a few of the stores we stopped in.

I could have spent a lot longer there, but the heat was really getting to me. Also, I was feeling very self-conscious about how much I was sweating from my face. Plus, I didn't want to handle the older books as my hands were sweaty and I don't think that's good for the books!

I found one book that I bought, Mrs Beatons Cookbook. I read somewhere that this cookbook made English cuisine bad because it says to boil all vegetables. The first book was published in the mid 1800s, as a guide to running a household, not just a cookbook. The copy I got was published in the early 1950s. I thought that it was just a rumour about boiling the vegetables, but it's true; the vegetable section says that boiling vegetables in water with salt is how they should be cooked!

Hannah managed to get a few books for her studies. She got one that costs 7,000yen new, but she got it for 4,000yen, not bad! She picked up a few other books as well. Like me, she could have bought a lot more!

By the time we had walked the length of the street, we were both rather too hot to continue. There were a few other places we could have visited, but we were both very tired and needed to be inside for a while.

Hannah had noticed a poster for a museum that wasn't too far away, so we decided to go there.

The poster that Hannah saw.

We had to get a train to get there.

I'll have to write about the museum tomorrow!