Today started a bit disastrously. Despite my setting of my alarm clock, I was woken at 11.15am by reception saying that I had 15 minutes to leave my room before I was charged an extra fee. Turns out that in my tiredness last night, I didn't check that the setting was AM or PM; turns out it was PM. This isn't really a problem, except that I missed breakfast and I couldn't grab a morning shower (sorry Davies, I'm going to stink when I get to Sydney). I hurried out of bed, three hours after I was meant to, pushed my kit into my bags and headed down to reception. Thankfully they store backpacks for free, and so that's where I left my stuff as I trundled next door to the cafe. After glancing at myself in a mirror, I realised that a coffee was essential, so I had two. An a pastry thing.

After that caffeine kick-start I felt a lot more awake and decided to make one last tourist-visit before making my way to the airport. Apparently the National War Shrine at Yasukuni was only three or four stops away on the subway, so I made my way there. This morning I needed an umbrella. When I arrived I noticed every single person appears to carry one at all time, and after making my purchase (¥500 from a vending machine) I was rather annoyed that I hadn't managed to use it after carrying it around all day, and it had proved to be a bit of an inconvenience. In fact, the humidity had totally held in two days until last night when I got to Shinjunku (skyscraper town) and suddenly it got all drizzly. I had hoped there would be an almighty downpour, which might lift the stuffiness, but instead it just steadily has been raining since then. It's been a bit difficult with the camera, but I think I've finally mastered holding the umbrella and taking photos at the same time now. After not very long in the damp, bustling youth-and-neon-crammed Shinjunku and Shibuya districts, I decided to head back and get some much needed sleep, which I did.

The shrine is a little bit controversial, in that it holds a number of 'Class A' war criminals, which were secretly interred there after the war (it became common knowledge in the 80s). The people who run it are also damning of the way they were regarded, and say that the term of war criminal is a 'western construct' and that Shinto religion doesn't recognise this. I know certain people who won't be too happy that I made the visit, but the historian in me was too curious to omit the opportunity. The shrine was originally built to memorialise earlier wars, and if I hadn't known it contained the dead of later times, I wouldn't have realised as I didn't have the time to visit the museum (which apparently makes some fairly different statements to those in western textbooks, especially regarding the 'unprovoked' nature of Pearl Harbour - and bringing attention to trade embargoes that don't often get mentioned).

My flight is a ten tonight, and I will be making my way over to the airport fairly soon as I'm not sure how long it is going to take. Last time I had some guidance how to navigate the non-subway sections of the train lines, but this time is going a bit more open to experiment. Japan has been cool; I'm glad I decided to come here, although I wish I'd given a little more thought to learning some of the language before I got here.