So apparently an elephant is now in the room above me. A nocturnal elephant who stomps around while I’m trying to sleep. And since the cast of “Thriller” from the UK is also in the hotel, there was some late night shrieking going on in the halls as well.

My lack of sleep plus the rain in the morning meant it was a good morning to rest up and sit around the room. I finally got going around noon and the rain had cleared up and I thought I’d go hang around Shinjuku station again. I forgot what a zoo it is, especially on the weekends, especially on a three-day weekend.

So I haven’t seen godzilla, but I did see a giant mechanical crab.

My first stop was lunch. I figured I’d try the curry place, Nakamura-ya, that my sister asked me to find. It’s now in a temporary building and there’s a faceless elevator leading up to the sixth floor where it is. Unlike most restaurants, there was no indication of what they were serving. Well, leave it to my sister to lead me to a place where the lunch set is not a bargain but a ¥2,625 curry. Yes, that’s about $33.40 at today’s exchange rate.

But what the heck, I’ve never had a $33.40 curry before. It started out with an appetizer plate.

Two kinds of curry (I picked seafood and regular, there was also Japanese beef hayashi rice).

And a drink is included. I picked “Indian tea” or chai if you’re in Portland.

So, was it worth ¥2,625? I’m not sure. It was tasty and well done but I think the curry at the not-that-great Indian restaurant was better.

I also decided to see the Hanazono Jinja, and maybe get some manju as well. I forgot about the manju. The shrine is tucked in between buildings in Shinjuku.

The entrance to the shrine looked like the side entrance, and it was.

Here’s the inside of the main gate. I didn’t take a picture from the outside.

Here’s a the main shrine.

Every Sunday there’s a flea market on the temple grounds. There’s guys selling old stuff that I’ve given to Goodwill and some other stuff that might be interesting but really, the same class of stuff that I don’t really need.

There was also a second small temple on the grounds.

After that went to get some maps at the tourist bureau and was going to head back to Shinjuku to buy some books for studying Japanese, but the ¥2,625 curry or the chai didn’t agree with me and I had to head back to the hotel. I found a back street back just to be different.

And that was about it for the day. I had a cheap dinner from the Tesco and that’s it for today.

I just hope the elephant upstairs has a quiet night.