On Monday, Rachel and I decided to make the most of our commuter passes and meet in Mejiro. My timekeeping has been atrocious recently. I spent too long doing little things about my room and ended up leaving some 15 minutes later than I should have to meet her on time, then realised that it'd be best if I didn't leave paying my rent until the evening since I didn't know what time we'd be back, so I did that before making my way to the station. After paying my rent I met Jessi, who I hadn't seen in weeks, in the lobby and we walked to the station together. She was on her way to buying shinkansen tickets for her getaway to Kyoto, where she's going to see in the new year.

As the train pulled in to the station I saw that Rachel was sat on a bench on the platform and ran to her ready to apologise feverishly but she said that it was alright, that she had been testing out the different modes on her camera and asked me to take a photograph of the Christmas present given to her by her host family: fluffy black leg warmers with a ribbon-bow. Mejiro is one of the quieter stops along the yamanote: it's only known for Gakushuin University which is attended by most of the current Imperial family and some famous persons. So we simply walked up the main road outside the station one way, stop in a Thai restaurant for lunch, then walk back to the station to check the map for anything interesting that the guidebooks might've missed out.

We decided to walk to the next stop on the Yamanote, Ikebukuro, and along the way visit a shrine. We wouldn't have found the shrine if I wasn't looking every which way but the way ahead as we followed Meiji Dori. The shrine was, I think, for childbearing, according to the map. The sign at the shrine itself told us about how the roof was an innovation of the time and another sign was for the gingko tree that might be the largest in Tokyo.

If you're a collector of commemorative stamps, you'll want to come here. Unfortunately I'd forgotten my journal on this day and will have to return another time. But I'm afraid to do so on my own because the large tree and the others surrounding the shrine made the area very shadowy.

When we got to Ikebukuro, we saw the Seibu Shinjuku terminal. Rachel had never seen a yellow train before we went to Gwynnie's for dinner a couple weeks ago, so she wanted to take photographs of these. Around this time we received an email from Jenna saying that she was at the travel agency on campus and asked if we wanted to take up the deal to go to Odawara castle and stay in a hotel on the coast in Atami the next day. We didn't know where either of these places were but we didn't have any plans and the cost was reasonable, so we agreed to go. We both wanted to more about this sudden trip but I didn't want to be sending emails back and forth when she was busy, so Rachel and I got on the train and went to meet her. On the way I remembered that I'd planned to go to my old dorm, in Nishi Kawaguchi, to return the key and officially move out on that Tuesday morning.