Exploring Japan — First Stop — Tokyo

Hello All,

We decided to visit Japan — largely by cruise. John was afraid he would starve if he had to eat Japanese food while in Japan. So, after a plane to San Francisco and then one to Tokyo, we arrived for a three day pre-cruise visit to Tokyo.

It is surprisingly cold in Japan and the cherry blossoms are delayed due to the unusual cold. We visited to Tokyo National Museum and the Asakusa Sensoji Temple on the first day. The museum was established in 1872 and was full of interesting things:

Afterward we moved on to the Asakusa Sensoji Temple. To reach it we had to walk down a block or so long path with shops on either side of the street. It was a weekend and a holiday so it was jammed with people!

There was a performer on the street. We loved his monkey!

We went back to the ship, had lunch, then went to the room. A little later I tried to leave the room and had a freakish accident — my scooter drive handle became wedged into the door jam with my front wheel spinning rapidly. My right foot was stuck under the spinning wheel; the metal rim of the tire slashed through my shoe and slashed the top of my foot just above the toes. The cut is about three inches long then turns and goes down between my toes.

WARNING-the picture below is not for the squeamish-it is way too graphic. Unless you have a strong stomach-please fast forward through it. The ambulance came and at the hospital, 17 — yes, 17 — stitches!!!

The next day we visited the headquarters of Fuji Television with its great observation deck.

We took pictures of the skyline from there.

Next was John’s favorite stop, Uniqlo, to which Campbell introduced John years ago in New York City. However, this was the mother store-12 stories in the Ginza area of downtown Tokyo. John had a fine time-five t-shirts and a new jacket.

The Tokyo Tower….and the only cherry blossoms we had seen…..and a quick visit to Din Tai Fung- a Chinese fast food restaurant with soup dumplings and other goodies which we discovered years ago on a trip to China. There are actually a few outlets on the West coast of the United States.

That night after dinner we had tickets to TeamLab Planets. It was a fun place that Campbell had recommended to us. Different images and/or movies all around us as we went from room to room.

On our day of embarkation, we first visited the Meiji Shrine, dedicated to the Emperor Meiji, the father of modern Japan.

The we drove to see the outside of the Imperial Palace seeing some fun things along with way.

A quadruple right-don’t see that everywhere.

Downtown Tokyo office building sculpture and then on to the cruise ship — but that’s for a later blog.

Beth