Day 2

Although it was a busy day, you don't really want to know about shopping! Let's just say, the things I like are a lot cheaper here, and even The Spy gets carried away, which for him his very strange.

Saw this in the street though!

 We did fit in some culture though, before we came here I read about a free art exhibition for Star Wars – The Last Jedi which finishes today! So we popped in there, it was small and there weren't that many exhibits, but there were a couple of interesting things.

And here is a shot of The Spy in the Dyptique shop, not being cheesy at all.

Came back for a siesta, then headed back to Ginza for some refreshments and dinner, of course we ended up having an adventure!

Visited the Sapporo Lion Beer Hall as we had been there the day before, and enjoyed the atmosphere, however today there was the added bonus of traditional Japanese/European oom pah pah... which culminated in a wondeful demonstration of how to make cow-bells really sexy.

The faces of people in there made it clear this was a cherished moment, didn't help we were right next to them, yodelling, singing and mooing (yes mooing) away, to the rapture of the clientele.

The Spy had found a restaurant he wanted to try out, but could we find it? Could we buggery. There was no English sign and trying to compare the symbols on Google to the ones on the signs around us was clearly impossible for ones as fluent in Japanese as us.

So we ended up thinking, ooh this place called Vampire Cafe looks like fun... let's try it. Up in the lift to the 7^th floor we go, only to wait in the smallest possible lobby ever, with a “spooky” animated skeleton and no-one to help, for about 10 minutes. Suddenly some kind of drag dracula appears, asks us something in Japanese and minced off again... left us for another 10 minutes while we wonder what we should do, was he just in character? Then he appeared again, and in no uncertain terms (as in showed us crossed fingers in an X) said we couldn't eat there, and stood behind his little counter reading something. So, rather embarrassed, we turned around and got back in the lift... it opened at the 4^th floor, which seemed to be another restaurant, and we just said... shall we try it?

Now these people were really welcoming, maybe they were used to the shell shocked look on our faces as they guided us to a table, and we finally worked out this was a Korean restaurant, table barbecue we did ourselves, really reminded us of home (there is the most excellent place near where we live which we love) the most tender beef, tasty prawns, and several other dishes. So good. We would really recommend Cobau in Ginza.

Sunday night, so we headed back to the hotel for a nightcap. Ilya was hijacked by a couple of ladies sat at the bar, as they always love the gays. Apparently they had seen us the previous day and one of them was deep in conversation with him asking for his advice, as the elder statesman of our kind, as we are now, you see her son had come out to her only 4 days ago and she didn't know what/whether to tell her husband... Jeez! What is it about us which constantly attracts either people's kids coming out to us, or parents/relatives introducing us to their newly outed relatives, or like tonight being asked such an important question? Why can't we just be chatted up by handsome men?