A heartfelt thanks to Q-Taro and his lovely girlfriend for ensuring that the penultimate meal of my trip around the around wasn't McDonald's...

After an afternoon of shopping I got the call to head out to Umegaoka Station on the Odakyu rail line. A short trip that should have taken 15 minutes instead took over an hour, partly because I couldn't actually find the Odakyu line in the cavernous Shibuya station, partly because I took the express train instead of the local and overshot my destination and partly because email wasn't working on my N86, due to lingering connection settings from Taipei.

None of this ultimately mattered, because by the time I got to where I was supposed to be my fellow diners were 45 minutes in to an hour-long wait for a table at Midorisushi.

Though we sat down for raw fish one of friendly staff talked us into this rather large cooked tuna jaw:

Once you scraped the meat off the bone it was a lot more tender than you'd think!

After that massive appetizer and an assortment of fresh-from-the-sea sushi (which I unfortunately neglected to photograph) it was time for dessert -- (from the left) black sesame, green tea and sweet potato ice cream. There was but a single order of the black sesame left and it was supposedly the tastiest of the three. As the guest I was given the honour of devouring it but I shared because I'm cool like that...

Though Japan's kick-ass keitai aren't really suitable for export, there's plenty of other stuff that is. Here are some highlights from my Tokyo stopover:

It's not only white phones that I like... Here's a collection of man-purses from Wise-Walker on display at the fashionable Tokyu Hands -- specifically the Shibuya location near my hotel.

These neoprene netbook/laptop sleeves were also pretty cool. I might have picked one up but truth is my Eee PC fits in my Porter bag just fine.

I was also quite thrilled to find an ample supply of phone ninjas in Asakusa, exactly where I had purchased them some three years ago. No white ones, though. :(

And not being the selfish type I had to make my way back to this crazy cat store in Odaiba so I could bring back something for my boy. They had an interesting selection of humiliating strap-on hats and such but I settled for a more practical gift -- some salmon jerky, which he polished off in less than 24 hours...

Here's something a little different -- an audio walkthrough of the fancy toilet in my Tokyo hotel room. If you've been listening to the DyscultureD podcast you'll have already heard this at the end of Episode 59. If not, check it out -- it's totally SFW!

Japanese Toilet Audio Walkthrough by acurrie