Day 1 Touring: Tokyo! Sunny, 15

New Beginnings!

We have arrived!! Our flight left Vancouver quite late due to delays caused by winter storms in the east and after a restful flight 'folded' into economy class we eventually arrived into Tokyo. The flight wasn't without its surprises. I'd noticed that the face of one of our flight attendants looked quite familiar, but I tucked that thought away only to have the same lady an hour later say, "Hi Mr. Travers!"...no one has called me that in years!! It was Chico, a very nice person who I'd briefly worked with in Vancouver more than a few years ago. She changed careers some 20 years ago and is now a mother of twins and flying the skies internationally. She is in high demand on the Canada-Japan route, being Japanese and of course language fluent. We had several nice visits during the flight, so Gina and Louise, you will likely remember her. Again and again I'm reminded what a small world we live in.

After arriving we passed through passport control and then joined a very long lineup to collect our train passes that I'd booked from home. We were significantly delayed, but eventually managed to get onto our train into Tokyo in the dark. We had hoped to meet up with our friend Jim for a visit before he caught a night bus south, but sadly that wasn't to be. We were too late and emailed him to not wait. We arrived at Tokyo station and changed trains there and successfully got off at the correct stop and walked on towards out small hotel. But not before stopping at a cool grocery and wandering the many isles having a look at everything. One of my favourite travel activities! Bought some mini dark chocolate KitKats and continued on in the dark until we luckily stumbled on our hotel. Checked in, we arrived in our 10m2 tiny room! It's not much bigger than two beds side by side on a platform!

 

We found that Jim had left us a nice gift bag at the hotel with treats and a nice bottle of saki!! Thanks Jim!  Having been fed on the plane we decided to forego dinner and after reorganizing ourselves we headed for bed, which wasn't difficult given that if we fell in it's general direction from anywhere in the room we'd almost assuredly hit it! 

After a restless sleep we were awake early and headed out the door in search of a 'breakfast set', the term for the first meal of the day in Japan. Oddly we ended up with a toasted egg salad sandwich and tea...not sure how that happened? Then off we went for a walk in search of some fun and the early cherry tree blossoms. On tv this morning I'd watched in fascination as the weather person gave the predicted dates for the bloom from south to north throughout the country. It's a very, very big deal here! There are festivals and by the the time the season passes the trees will have been viewed by millions. This influenced our decision to be here at this time, sort of like going to Holland for the tulips in April. While early days in the process, we found a few small trees showing some colour, and I think there were more people taking pictures than there were blossoms on the trees! These are a few that I found in the grounds of a quiet temple.

 

 

We wandered into Ueno Park, one of the special places to apparently see in Tokyo. There are beautiful temples, gardens and it's also home to the Tokyo National Museum complex as well as other art museums and the city zoo. Mostly we just wanted to walk off the jet lag and poor sleep, so we pretty much wandered without a plan, just letting things unfold as they would. A great decision as it turned out.

 

 

 

We wandered through the side streets and headed back towards Ueno Park. Small groups of preschoolers, it could have been most anywhere.

 

Back again in the park and another temple and pagoda complex.

 

 

 

 

There was a special spot where a memorial had been established commemorating the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with flames transferred from the memorials at those two sights. We will be visiting the peace park at Hiroshima on this trip, so it was a sober reminder of what we can expect there.

 

We enjoyed a wonderful visit to the Tokyo National Museum which was something I'd wanted to experience. We often find that a visit to a cultural and anthropological museum prior to wandering a country helps to prepare us for what lies ahead. Given the nature of our Shikoku journey, we think our visit today has been very useful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

By now we were getting tired of wandering the various museums in the park and after first stopping at the train station to reserve seats for the high speed train to Kyoto, we headed off in search of lunch.

 

We found dessert first!!

 

 

And settled on a small tempura shop where we figured out how to put money into a machine and select our meals. Doesn't sound like much, but most of the process was in Japanese! 

 

While we ate, the whole restaurant shook and rattled as the trains went overtop! It was pretty comical. We trudged back to our digs and while Annemarie slept I tried to load up this post, but had continuous problems. While it's taken me quite a while to get this done, interrupted by a hot soak in a private bath (oban) on the roof, I've learned a lot about this new blog process that I now have to use. So yes, I know the print is harder to read this time, but I think the next post will go much smoother. There's been a bit of cussin' in this room today! David, I hope you appreciate this with your morning coffee over there in Vancouver! 

 

This sign was on top of every trash can for 200 metres! :). I think it's a ploy by the park staff to reduce their work load!