We did it! It took a LOT of walking, because I have no doubt that we went about it in the least logical way possible, but we completed the Shichifukujin-meguri today.

And as we hit the fifth shrine, we realized that we’d missed a really cool component of the whole thing…the stamp rally. Apparently, we should have bought this piece of paper with the seven shrines names on it and gotten a stamp at each. Unfortunately, we didn’t realize this until late in the game, but we bought the thing anyway and I had the woman at the Benten shrine near Tokyo Tower stamp it (well, the wife did, anyway) because that was the shrine I had looked forward to visiting. It’s a sweet little shrine at the base of the hill below Tokyo Tower.

We walked up to the Tower, and bought crap, because…crap, duh. Had soba at Zojoji, burned my travel charm which had literally jumped into my backpack at home to come and be burned, then bought another.

On the way to the train station to get to the next shrine, we passed another cute shrine (the area is simply crawling with them, because of the Zojoji) and went up to pray. There was a man walking around in Heian period wear, so Bruce and Pattie took pictures.

By the way. You’ll notice the lack of pictures from Comiket and such. That’s because, true to form, I forgot to take a single one. Today I got two…one of a cement post that was supposed to look like a tree stump and wifey and Bruce at Sakurada shrine. That’s it. I’m just not a photo person.

At the fourth shrine or so, I had realized that all the ones on the Minato-ku meguri had banners marking them. That helped for the sixth, which the wife found, and after we visited the very last, we saw that the banners marked the shrine form the main street where it wasn’t visible. We were all really happy. Because the 7 gods had held up their end of the bargain, and I had held up mine, I finally gave in and bought a fortune, which said, “pretty good luck.” So I felt really happy ’bout that.

While in Roppongi (which Bruce immediately loathed too…oh, and yesterday, we had eaten at a fast food place there called “First Kitchen” which, for fast food was pretty good, even if Tokyo wants me to eat cabbage, for reasons I can’t identify) for the last two shrines, we stopped for coffee and cake at Almond. Almond is always in the guidebooks about Roppongi, and as is typical with most places in guidebooks, it was okay. But we had a sit, a coffee and cake and were ready to face that last walk to the shrine.

After we completed our walkabout, we headed back from Bruce’s room. Sat for a short spell, then headed out to a local theater to see “Love My Life” based on the manga by Yamaji Ebine. It was not the best movie I’ve ever seen, but it was sweet and fluffy. Eri and Ichiko’s relationship is very real and cute. I will do a full review later when I do a Live-Action review week. I liked the music alot, I may look for the soundtrack. The band who performed the music, Noodles, is doing a live on Thursday that I will not be going to.

Dinner was very decent katsudon at a random Katsu restaurant where the man next to me was distressed by our foreigness. Can’t help, sorry.

And to end the day, I need to revile Oosaki. Twice I have been on a train back to the hotel and, in Oosaki, the train has simply stopped going where it was supposed to go. Once it all of a sudden was headed to Yokohama, and tonight it was, to the surprise of everyone aboard, out of service, stranding us in ing Oosaki, waiting for another train.

There are ads everywhere for a TV show this weekend call Byakkotai and already the wife is slashing the male characters on the posters. It looks like great, overemotional Meiji period drama.

Oh, and those silk worm cocoons I got yesterday? One strews them about to bring good fortune.

Tomorrow, we start geeking once again. I actually don’t expect to buy much, because you have to see the box of doujinshi I’m shipping home…but I have no doubt I’ll get some stuff. LOL