Email followed breakfast in the inexorable cycle of Japanese mornings. It rained too, and a forest of eye-level umbrellas sprung up. We passed a shop playing 'Tequila Sunrise' by an Eagles tribute band. Does that count?,/p>

We wanted to have a quick look at a craft gallery to see traditional wooden things, and then go out to the Tokyo-Edo museum (great for a rainy day) to see what the city is all about. So we took the train to the stop the guidebook suggested for the craft museum and we found ourselves in a quiet little residential area. I'd been trying to work out for ages why these areas reminded me of Frankfurt, and I finally worked it out. It's all neat and tidy, everything's clean, there are window boxes and door mats and all the houses and apartment blocks are proper places, no tarpaulins or concrete boxes or market stalls. Apart from the Japanese signs and the occasional flashing neon, it could have been any big European city in the rain. It was certainly as unlike Asia as we'd encountered, more European than anywhere in New Zealand or Australia, even.

Many of the houses had sprays of plastic autumn leaves over their doors, and I read that viewing the colours of autumn is almost as popular a pasttime as the cherry blossoms in spring. People certainly seemed to be welcoming the coming of the season. We walked up and down the road suggested by the guidebook and couldn't find the craft museum anywhere. But we did discover a fantastic area for shopping, with tiny places under a covered arcade, selling a huge variety of inexpensive crafts and some souveneirs. We'll remember that for next time! We came to a sign post and followed the directions to the museum which was actually called something else. It was a small place with displays and demonstrations on Saturdays. Today it just had a few cases of tools. But we were given a map and we found that there was a temple just down the road, so we went out to have a look.

This place was busy, but, like just about everywhere else, very quiet. There was a cauldron of something smoking, and people were wafting the smoke over themselves. Plenty of people were bowing and throwing coins into a pool, making wishes. The temple compound was quite large, and had a five-storey pagoda nearby, and a number of wooden market stalls that looked a bit like the Christkindlmarkt in Salzburg - small sheds that sold religious artifacts and good luck tokens. Behind this was a gallery of bonkei - miniature landscapes built on trays. I'd been hoping to see some of these as I get quite excited, but I figured that we wouldn't have enough time and would have to wait for our proper Japan visit instead. These were artificial, though, but were very pretty - little rocky islands with trees; seascapes and mountainsides. Some had fluorescent trolls on them.

Leading out from the temple gates were a few alleys of covered market, and everything imaginable was available here, including kimonos for your dog, the fantastic waving cats (which are apparently fortune-beckoning animals - found absolutely everywhere from Singapore up) and all types of local dried food in beautiful packaging. That's another thing I've noticed - the way things are presented in shops and presented to customers is always gorgeous and painstakingly done. Wrapping is a big deal here, again, very much like in Germany.

We went to find the Edo museum. It would be open until six today, so we still had a few hours to look round. We found the place and a large sign outside it that said they were closed. Then we saw that in the guidebook there were two Edo museums in Tokyo, and the second one was open until 6 today, so, forty minutes later we were standing outside it. This, too was closed, there was just no sign to say so. We had to walk around the whole place, peering in through the windows to find out. So we decided that the Japanese museums had thwarted us and it was time to find some food instead. The guidebook recommended a few places, and we tried to track them down.

I know I've complained about Lonely Planet quite a lot, but the Tokyo book is without doubt the worse one we've had to buy. Out of the three places the book suggested, one was on a floor that didn't exist and the shop girls had never heard of it, one was opposite a shopping centre which spanned a block, but was nowhere to be found on any of the four streets it could have been on, and the third, somewhere under the railway line (not that the book was vague or anything) was similarly elusive. It was dark and still raining, so we decided to go back to the lovely place we went to on our first night. We ate far too much again, with iced noodles and deep fried things, all excellent. There was even a little bit of freshly grated horseradish, as good as any kren in Austria. Made my eyes stream and my head explode, anyway.

We returned to the hotel and started packing, and even felt a few small earthquakes. I'm glad Mikey mentioned them, because I'd felt a few before but put it down to my imagination. It didn't feel like I'd expected, not all sudden and shaky, more a gentle swaying that made the dolls in glass cases rattle a bit. An interesting experience!

Before I went to bed, I tried out the cube bath, because I've missed baths such a lot. Filled almost to the top with hot water, it was delightful, reaching my chin and making me all cosy and sleepy. Not quite the same as lying in luxurious bubbles though - I had my knees tucked up under my chin. Which did make propping my book up, out of the water, easier though.