Wow…it’s already June 24th, time has really flown by very quickly. Oh yeah !! I have turned 33 today, so I guess Happy Birthday to me. I guess I will be celebrating my birthday in Tokyo and Shanghai, pretty cool huh? Considering I only had half a day in Tokyo left I decided to have an early day, so I got up around 6:30 am and decided to hit the Gym. After picking up my Gym pass from the lobby I was on my way. Half way through I looked at the pass and on it said on sat the gym opened at 10:00 am, so with that plan shot down, I ran around the block before heading back to the hotel for some breakfast. Ichiro was going to meet me at 11:30, so I had time to catch up on some of my blog’s. While writing my wife called and asked me had I been making huge purchases on our Visa card, as the card been blocked for security reasons. Called Visa to find out that there are been 3-4 purchase attempts been made with incorrect expiration date from London to Utah and Texas. I guess somehow the card # was stolen, so I cancelled my card and hoped the rest of the trip I wouldn’t have to use my Visa.
Having taken care of this small matter, I awaited Ichiro’s arrival. I guess Japanese standard time is similar to Pakistani :-), Ichiro had a long night and did not go to bed till 3:00 am (his excuse, I bet he was sitting and downloading stuff from the net….turns out he is a semi-hacker as well, when he’s not working at SONY). Once he arrived, Ichiro and I started the hunt for the magnets and post cards. We first went to the Aoyama, which is quite a modern shopping district full of brand name designer shops. Here they also have the original KITTY store, which a must to stop by to pick up something for the kids (especially girls). I was quite surprised to see the amount of teenagers in this store buying stuff, now I know why Rika on her every trip back from Japan always used to talk about KITTY and bring some kind of small new toy back for herself, she is truly a young at heart :-)
With now luck in finding the magnet or postcards, Ichiro told me that he knew of one other place we could try, but first we were going to head towards Yoyogi Vehara, where the biggest Mosque in Tokyo was located. I had mentioned to Ichiro last night that I would like to go to see the mosque and he came through with research and location. This is mosque is maintained by the Turkish government and was renovated recently (2002). It was built in 1938 and since then has been a icon for Islamic architecture in Tokyo. After reading Zuhr at the mosque I went down to see the library and the community hall and guess what I found over there….Post cards, the perfect one’s from Tokyo. I was really glad we made a stop there. As time was running out we made our way from the mosque to Shibuya once again to see if I could find some magnets. No such luck and I guess I was going to leave Tokyo without any magnets. As it was almost time for me to make my way to the airport to head to shanghai we headed back to my hotel to take the shuttle bus to Narita. I said my thanks and goodbye to Ichiro and promised him to not write about how he was not on time and what a great GPS system he has on his mobile phone :-).
After quick check-in at Narita, I started to stroll in the Duty Free area, thinking maybe I might be able to find a magnet there. With having given up hope of finding one, I made my way to the ANA lounge and on my way there could not believe my eyes when a small shop happened to have tourist magnets. I was thrilled, after all one should never lose hope.
The flight to Shanghai was a bumpy one, but was made pleasant by watching Glory Road and the excellent service by ANA. Upon arrival in Shanghai we were greeted with a thunderstorm and I was finally beginning to think that I must be carrying some bad luck with me, cause the rain seems to be following me around. Oh well, I was going to make the best of it and was not going to let it ruin my birthday in shanghai. After all Shak had promised me a great time in Shanghai and I was looking forward to it.
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