Saturday 25 August

Get up late. Exhausted. We’ve peaked. We’re suddenly burnt out. Go shopping. Still baking hot… Have a nice Teriyaki dinner and then spend the evening catching up on the blogging (which has completely dropped off in the last week because we’ve been so busy).

Sunday 26 August

Pack and check out of the hotel, leaving the luggage there. We go for a last walk in the Imperial Gardens. Even mid-morning it’s incredibly hot and humid: we’ve adopted the Japanese habits of carrying an umbrella to keep the sun off and carrying a small hand towel to mop up the sweat:

We then head off to Gallery G-77 where we take the show down. Much easier than putting it up! Then a a farewell lunch with Carl, Matthew, and the latter’s wife Remi: unfortunately Sueko couldn’t join us. With heavy hearts we depart in time to catch the 18:35 Shinkansen to Tokyo:

Arrive in Tokyo just before 21:00. WOW. Even this late on a Sunday night it’s like we’re dwarfed into inconsequentiality by the huge and wildly extravagant post-modernist architecture. Ginza is a neon-emblazoned temple to consumerism, the scale of which staggers the mind. It makes London look silly:

Immediately we get lost on our short walk to the hotel: the state we’re in this could get ugly. We are saved from ourselves by a passer-by who intervenes, takes control, and walks with us virtually all the way to our destination. Lovely man.
A quick meal and we drop into bed.