Machida is a suburb on the southwest side of
Tokyo, kind of on the way to
Yokohama. Its only real claim to fame is as a minor discount shopping
mecca--there are whole bunches of
random little stores that sell just about anything for cheap.
Fun Things to Do in Machida:
--Have dinner at Lafayette, one of only two Cajun restaurants in the entire city of Tokyo. Make sure to get the Cajun Chicken and the Half-And-Half Beer (half light, half dark). The Blackened Salmon Fish is also excellent.
--Spend all your extra 100-yen coins playing House of the Dead II. Then go change all your "extra" 1000-yen bills and keep playing.
--Have lunch at Piccolo, the Italian restaurant under the McDonald's by the Odakyu station. Flirt with the maitre d'. Make sure to ask for your salad without anchovies.
--Go to JORNA and laugh at all the freaky clothes the teenagers wear. Pretend that you could even fit your arm into them.
--If you can remember which tiny back street it's on, go to Tomizawa, the best store in the world. It smells like you might imagine Xanadu or Samarkand would. If you have any money left after the arcade, buy some saffron or dried figs or something. Look covetously at those nifty clay spice jars again, and decide, again, that you can't afford them.
--Try to find The Good Ramen-Ya.