After being a little disappointed with Chinatown we weren't expecting much of Japantown but we still wanted to check it out as it took only about 25 mins to walk there.

From the photos in our guidebook we recognised the Peace Pagoda straight away - it is five-tiered and 75ft - apparently Taiko drummers perform here during the Cherry Blossom festival each April.

The only building we could see that looked interesting was a mall which had lots of restaurants and shops which sold all sorts of Japanese toys, DVDs etc so Steve was in his element but he didn't buy anything! We were expecting more shops selling cool Japanese clothing as we wanted to get some funky T-shirts but there wasn't any around.

It didn't take long to look around the whole mall but we'd worked up an appetite by then so we had to get lunch! The place we chose was cool, it had 3 TV's on with different Miyazaki films playing: Princess Mononoke, Kiki's Delivery Service and Spirited Away. The menu was a bit strange (Japanese pizza?!) so we just opted for Yaki Udon as a safe bet and it was cheap at $7 each for a regular sized portion which turned out to be huge so goodness knows what the large is like!!

I guess Japantown gave us a taster of what Japan might be like, as some of the restaurants had the plastic models of food dishes in the windows and we went into the supermarket and saw lots of weird and wonderful things! There was loads of different ready made sushi and fresh fish - Steve said there was whale and gullible-me believed him!

On the way home we passed an art gallery near our hotel and decided to take a look as it looked kinda interesting and it was free! The paintings were really good so went spent quite a while looking around and the guy working there was so nice and helpful, even offering us bottles of water. He let us take photos of the paintings and I've uploaded some of our fave ones, but I have found the gallery has a website: http://www.johnpence.com/visuals/painters/index_city.htm

OK, onto the washing machine reference, beware there's a rant coming...

Not having your own washing machine means doing laundry is like a finely tuned military operation. You have to make sure you have the right ammunition (quarters for the machines) and timing has to be perfect (only 4 machines and 100 rooms, the odds aren't good).

But we couldn't put off doing our laundry any longer so I headed down to the laundry room of the hotel, only to find all the machines were being used. I waited around to see if one became free but none did so I lugged the washing back up to the room. After waiting a while Steve came with me and we found a machine free so we loaded up and then waited in the common area with our laptop and sent some quick emails. When our washing was done we tried to use the drier but we didn't have enough quarters!

So I went off to get some change. The hotel reception didn't give out change so she told me to go to the Laundromat as they had a change machine, but she pointed me in the wrong direction so I couldn't find it until I asked a hotel doorman. When I eventually found the Laundromat I couldn't see a change machine so I asked the chinese woman who was working in there and she just barked at me "You do washing here?" and I said "No, at my hotel" and her response was to turn her back on me and start folding up a shirt! I couldn't believe she could be so rude!! So I asked her again if they had a change machine and she gave me a dirty look before saying "No, broken". So I said "OK, thank you" as I walked out and she called out "You no do washing here. Change for here, not hotel". All I kept thinking was "That's all you had to say, you stupid old bat, instead of just ignoring me!" I was in a RAGE!! I went back to the laundry room to let Steve know I was OK cos I'd been gone a while and he said someone had left money in one of the driers so he'd already started drying our clothes! I didn't know whether to laugh or cry!