Up at 7:15. We enjoy breakfast at 8:30 at a bakery in Shibuya.
The only available times we could go to the Shibuya sky observation tower was at 11:00. The famous Shibuya Scramble is a sea of pedestrians holding umbrellas as it's raining this morning. 
Shibuya Sky is located at the roof of the Shibuya Scramble Square, named because of proximity to the pedestrian crossing that is the busiest crossing in the world. You can go directly from Shibuya Station to Shibuya Scramble Square via an underground floor. Because of the rain the rooftop is NOT open. This is a disappointment of major proportion as the primary draw for this attraction is the rooftop area which is open to the sky. It's a three story 360 degree open air observation deck. The photos I have seen online of this area have been spectacular. This means that if we ever come back to Shibuya, we need to come on a clear day and ideally during sunset. Despite the rain and lack of access to the roof tickets are sold out for the day. 
The indoor observation area called the Sky Gallery is on the 46th floor. 
It has three digital art installation; Time River.
Time River
Parallel Window
Parallel Window
and Datascape,
Datascape
none of which were very interesting. Clouds obscured views of mountains, which meant that Mount Fuji was not visible.
The windows in the Shibuya Sky are floor to ceiling panoramic so you can look at the view below standing right up to the window. At one corner a professional photographer takes photos for a fee. At another two corners you can take your own photo. We ask a family visiting from Indonesia to take our photo. 
We take in a bird's eyeview of a not too busy Shibuya Scramble. 
What would Shibuya be without its world-famous Hachiko?
Norm and Shirley buy a Hachiko souvenir at the gift shop. 
This morning Norm found the website for Ponte Seto-Umi. He pulled up the English details and found the message about their hours of operation during Golden Week. 
As we waited for the elevator to exit from the observation tower Norm called the store. He uses Oomie, a lower cost phone service. He bought his device from online Costco and bought an International phone package for 1400 minutes. By using Oomie, calls are 3 cents a minute. When his call was answered he asked if they were open and was told yes. We take the Yamanote line to go there. As soon as we get out of the station the store is right across the street! There are four large bottles of Yamamoto soy sauce. 
The Gees and we buy two each, emptying the shelf. 
On our way out after paying, a clerk had restocked it with their last two bottles from the cupboard below. It’s 12:30 and it will take an hour train ride to go to Yokohama. Back at the station we would have bought a ramen and curry set for 700 yen but it was a very small stand up place that only fit five diners; we didn't want to eat standing up. Across from it was a diner with seats. A bowl of curry was 300 yen so Mike and I ordered a bowl each. 
When Norman ordered the server said “Sold out”. They got an egg sandwich from a convenience store. We hopped on a train to Yokohama and walked a short distance to Chinatown.
We chose one of the first Chinese restaurant we happened upon. Mike was full from the curry so when the waitress took our set orders he motioned that he wasn’t ordering but she seemed to indicate that we all had to order an item so he looked at the menu quickly and chose chowmein. Norman ordered a Tsukeman” set which he says is pronounced “skinmen”. Shirley had a yakisoba set and I had cashew chicken set. Our sets came with rice, soup, and almond jello dessert. Norm’s came with fried rice and dessert. Mike’s chowmein was spicy. Because he had eaten the curry earlier he was too full to finish his meal. 
Outside it was raining steadily as we walked to the station to go to Hard Rock in Queens Plaza. At least the store was inside so we stayed dry. 
Mike and Norman buy Yokohama city shirts. 
The last excursion is to Costco. Norman has a taxi app which he attempted to use but in the end we ended up waving our hands to hail one. The ride takes us through the industrial parts of Yokohama so the sights are scenic. The ride took thirty minutes and cost 7700 yen ($50.00). The grey haired driver had not driven to Costco before and he got confused about how to get us close to the entrance. 
A traffic guard was not helpful in directing him the right way and waved him to turn down a narrow back street leading us away. At this point the driver stopped the meter. With a bit of direction from us he dropped us off in the underground parking lot. Some of us thought this Costco was two stories because it was tall. The first floor is for parking. You enter the store by getting on a moving ramp. 
Shopping at Costco is fun, particularly in a different country. There some are products that are only sold regionally. 
We checked small suitcases and because we bought more soy sauce we decided to buy a small suitcase for $64.00. The food samples are generous portions. 
We tried a delicious strawberry shortcake that was light and moist. 
The Gees brought some sponge cakes for snacks, a tray of sushi and a IPad and cellphone stand. 
The guys wanted to eat a hot dog which they shared with us gals. 
We also tried a Hokkaido melon smoothie. I didn’t care for the smoothie as it was too sweet and I didn’t like the melon flavor. 
Norman went to guest services at Costco to enquire about a taxi to the closest train station. We exited, opened the luggage and packed the shoyu and other purchases inside.
When we were ready to leave, Norman asked guest service to call a taxi for us. It arrived immediately. The ride to the train station cost $16. It was cold and raining heavily. Having snacked at Costco we weren’t in the mood to dine out. We stopped at the McDonald’s next to our hotel and ordered takeout.
This featured blog entry was written by Helen K. from the blog Japan Trip 2024.
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