Tokyo City Tour

Well Tokyo is a big city but it is not as frantic feeling as Beijing or Shanghai. Even though we can't read the language, there are more English sub titles and directions. The traffic is nowhere near as bad as it was in either of the cities in China and much more orderly. We'd heard the subway was just packed, and I am sure it is at rush hour, but we went to the Sony Center after our tour and came back via subway and it was empty enough to get a seat. This surprised me. The underground city at Ikebuko (not correct spelling) which is our stop is just huge. Finding our way out was the most challenging part. On the way though we found a McDonalds which was a good lunch!

Let me start back at the beginning. The buffet breakfast is big and we enjoyed that. From here on out, that is our only furnished meal each day. We had a group dinner last night which was very good but most of us are ready to eat very light the rest of the way. We met at 9 and got on the bus and started our tour. The Program Director had borrowed a wheelchair for Jim which was a huge help. We went to the Buddist Temple and a smaller religious building nearly. We wafted the smoke that was supposed to heal things, toward Jim's back but it didn't work. Then we went to the Royal Palace which had beautiful gardens and it was a pretty sight. Then we went to the Tokyo Tower and went up to the observation deck. It was very pretty from up there. Guess on a clear day you can see Mt Fuji but the fog obscured it today. Then we drove to Ginza , the big shopping district like 5th Avenue and we got off there and went to the Sony building and had fun looking at all the new Sony products. With no English subtitles, a lot was lost on me, but I did manage to pick up a couple of brochures in English that I thought Robert might enjoy browsing. Then we took the red line back to our station but spent an hour probably trying to find the right exit for our hotel. It is just huge. If we were not so tired , it might be fun to go and shop some, but nothing is looking too great to us right now! You can tell it is at the end of the trip!