This will be a short entry today. I know I've said it before, but I really mean it this time.

Today was just a day set aside for shopping. It's getting towards the end of the holiday, and the remainder of the time is set aside for traversing the Alpine Route, and Disneyland, which basically leaves today for shopping for souvenirs, trinkets and other Japan bric-a-brac to weigh down our suitcases, and lighten our wallets, for the trip home.

It was nice not having to rush around to be somewhere this morning. It actually felt a bit like a holiday, which was weird. First port of call was Starbucks. I'm really going to miss Starbucks when I return to Australia. Not sure anyone has openly "missing" Starbucks before, but I'm not too ashamed to admit it.

The weather today, once again, bamboozled me. By all accounts it was supposed to be torrential rain all day. Even the weather report each time I checked it, from 3 different sources, all said something similar like "Thunderstorms, easing to showers at 5:30pm today". Aside from a 15 minute sprinkling of rain in the morning, today's weather was perfect. It was sunny, and around 18 degrees. We ended up carrying the umbrellas and jackets with us for the entire day.

Today, again I would estimate that we walked around 10km or more. For most of the day we were walking from one shopping district to another. Place X is 20 minutes away, so we'd walk there. Place Y is only 15 minutes back in the opposite direction, so we'd walk there, etc. I would have loved to have GPS trackers on us during this trip. One rainy day I might sit down with Google Maps and do a rough calculation of how far we walked each day.

One comes across some unique characters in Japan. Usually young people trying to stand out from the crowd or exhibit some form of uniqueness in a socially acceptable act of rebellion. Then again, other times you come across some people who are just bat-crap crazy. We met one such guy today on our way to the shops. Dressed entirely in white, including a white top hat, white cape and a monocle, this guy thought he was some kind of superhero.
At each set of traffic lights he'd put his arms straight out behind him and run like he was flying when the light turned green so that his cape billowed behind him, and when we caught up to him at the next set of traffic lights, he'd cover his face with his cape, before flicking it over his shoulder like the phantom of the opera.

I really wish I spoke enough Japanese to ask this dude what his story was, as I'm sure it would be a fascinating tale.

The highlight of my day, and one of the food highlights of my trip, was our breakfast/lunch. I love ramen, and my favourite variety of ramen is Tonkotsu, or pork bone broth ramen. One of the most famous chains, which has become a bit of a franchise, now showing up in places such as the USA and Hong Kong, is Ichiran ramen. Most reviews range from good to glowing, and it has been on my to-do list forever. For some reason I've missed out on doing it on last 3 trips, so today was the day.

An unassuming storefront beckons you into a series of vending machines, where you place your order, and are given cards to select your soup richness, spicyness, noodle firmness, and add-ins like green onions, garlic, extra chashu pork, etc.

You're then led into a dark and fairly cramped hallway containing a series of booths which have dividers separating you from the person beside you. You're greeted in front of you by a torso. You never see above the chest of the person serving you, nor do you see below their wasteline. They talk to you, take your order, and provide your food through a catflap. It would entirely possible to eat at this restaurant without seeing the face or legs of another person on a quiet day.

The ramen comes out quite quickly. They botched my order a little, by leaving off a few things like the onions, but that was soon rectified with around 500 apologies from the torso serving me.

So how was the ramen? I was speechless. It helped that I was pretty hungry, and I really like ramen, but it was life changing. It's rare that something so hyped lives up to your expectations, but I wasn't prepared for just how good this ramen was. It will now be the ramen against which all other ramens I ever eat will be judged. And I fear that it will never be surpassed.

So with full stomachs and tired legs, naturally the only sensible thing to to would be to walk around for the next 3 hours looking at 100 yen stores, so that's exactly what we did. If you know me, you'll know that 100 yen stores are my very definition of hell. If there was a final destination, and I'd been deemed sufficiently evil by whatever deity you believe in to be sent to hell, my place penance for all of eternity would be a 100 yen store.

After 7 hours of shopping, we were over 3km from our guesthouse, but instead of taking the obvious and sane option of catching the bus, we decided to walk back. We took the easy option for dinner, which involved as little mental capacity as possible, and that was Coco curry for the 3rd time this trip. Still one of my favourite restaurants in Japan.

Tomorrow is trains, for quite a few hours which will involve sitting, which suits us fine. We'll be heading North East again to Toyama, and checking into a Toyoko Inn, in preparation for traversing the Alpine Route on Monday. It's supposed to be crowded to all time record levels. It's supposed to be torrential rain. All signs point to it being an absolute nightmare of a day, and that we're fools for even considering it.

At least it will make for an interesting blog post.