1st January 2011
Our original plan was to catch the Sumida River Cruise from Odaiba to Asakusa in old Tokyo but as it was a little too cold to go on the boat, we decided to go to Shinjuku instead. We hopped back on to the Yurikamome Monorail to Shimbashi and from there took one of the subway lines to Shinjuku. Even Shinjuku was relatively quiet on the New Year Day. All the major department stores were closed. We checked out the few that were opened and Raena picked up a few working clothes which fitted her nicely.
Rastam wanted to take us to a 'fusion' izakaya in Shinjuku but unfortunately it was still closed. In the end we settled for another ízakaya'' (local pub) near the Shinjuku Isetan. It was here that pakdokter received a call from pakdokter's bank in Malaysia. Pakdokter first thought that the caller had wanted to confirm whether pakdokter had made some payments with the card in Tokyo that day and told her that pakdokter had already informed them that pakdokter would be in Tokyo for a week!
To pakdokter's pleasant surprise the CIMB Bank officer told pakdokter that pakdokter had left pakdokter's credit card at the last department store where pakdokter had used it to pay for Raena's purchases! The department store had called up the bank and told them to contact pakdokter so that pakdokter could collect the card from their cashier. Honestly, this could only happen in Japan! Anywhere else, pakdokter's card would be gone and there would most likely be some ópportunistic' purchases already charged to the card.
Pakdokter and Rastam rushed back to the store and instead of allowing pakdokter to apologise for being so careless and forgetful about the card, the cashier and the pretty sales-girl insisted that it was their fault for not making sure that pakdokter had collected pakdokter's card and repeatedly apologised profusely to pakdokter for 'their' mistake!
It was so good of them to make it their duty to call up CIMB Bank in Malaysia to try and reach pakdokter and thank you, too, to CIMB, for acting on the call immediately.
Pakdokter has had several 'mishaps' like this in the past with as much an equally happy endings. On one of our earliest trips to Tokyo, we left a back-pack on the train while rushing down to the Tokyo Disneyland. We reported to the train station and the next day the back-pack was delivered to our hotel room! Not a single item was missing......
Shinjuku was devoid of the usual crowd...
the menu came printed as well as on a tablet computer...
typing the orders on the tablet computer....
the first four Japanese 'tapas' plates...
egg omellete and cheese and sesame seed 'pau'.....
tuna roll and salmon and tuna carpaccio...
gyoza ( dumpling) and grilled fish...
shashimis....
and finally a mee goreng... 
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