Today we had free time until 2pm, so after wrestling with my bags and jumping on them to close them, I decided to head back to the Quilt Festival, after all that’s why I came to Tokyo. So off I went on my own for a couple of hours.

If you need a taxi in Tokyo, just go to a hotel and the porter outside will hail one for you, and its as easy as that. The doors on the taxis open and close on their own (I assume the driver pushes a button.

You are not allowed to smoke outside, but they permit smoking in the restaurants!

I thought that being a Monday the quilt show might be a bit quieter, um nooo I was wrong.

The (mainly) women queue outside entertained by a big screen playing an old black and white movie!

Once they are inside they go straight to the seating area and put their coats, bags etc onto seats to book them for later when they sit down. Several also take pieces of string and rope off an area big enough for their group to sit.

This was my lunch today, you purchase a bento box and a drink, I was asked whether I wanted hot or cold, I chose hot – this was how it came – in a bottle like this, and it stayed hot for ages.

Some of the stands have hilarious names but most of them are only in Japanese.

Even some sake tasting!

I finished my lunch and headed for the exit, I threw the bag with the empty bento box into the bin and walked towards the exit. I looked down at the bag I was carrying and realised that I had thrown my shopping bag into the rubbish instead of the bento box, I ran back to the bin, which was one of those big bins that had a sloping top then a sort of roof on it, with a gap of about 30cms, I couldn’t see into the bin and I wasn’t game to put my hand in there. There was a young guy working at one of the food stalls nearby so I tried to communicate with him that I had put the wrong bag into the bin, he thought I was asking him if I could put my rubbish in the bin!!! Dear oh dear, anyway, I got my phone out and went to my translation app and typed in what I was saying, it translated it beautifully into Japanese and he said ‘ahh’ and opened the bin for me, phew there it was on top, yay, got my shopping back and popped my bento rubbish in.

I got into the taxi to head back to the hotel to catch the transfer to the airport. I checked my emails while in the taxi and yahoo Air New Zealand had upgraded me to premium economy, fantastic – looking forward to the bubbles and a good sleep.

Goodbye Japan, its been amazing, such lovely, fun people, a clean and unique country.