Tokyo

(Pics to come)

We arrived in Tokyo after a long day of travelling. We got the airport limousine bus to our hotel in Shinjuku.  It was great to see the Tokyo version of the Eiffel Tower and amazing to pass buildings with the lights still on and the “salaryman” still hard at work at his desk.  A good night’s sleep had us all refreshed to go for a walk and encounter peak hour. Incredible! Single file was the order of the day.

Lots of people were wearing the face masks (we know why after sitting directly in front of someone on the bus who coughed incessantly without covering his mouth.. uurgh…) and it was just a swarm of humanity.  Out of the swarm though…what came towards us but a little blenheim Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, just like our little Sophie dog back home.  We descended upon her as her hapless owner put up with us fussing over his little “inu”.  So cute. And funny. We only saw one other dog within the next hour and that was in a girl’s handbag.   At this point we should say that our Japanese is not too great. Lois studied Japanese on and off for a few years about 10 years ago.  But hey, we get by..

Now Maccas must get a good rap, as the local one did the best hotcakes ever. Good coffee too.  We managed to get a seat upstairs where we could watch the world (almost literally) go by.  And it was rather amusing to watch the girls in their little pleated short skirts sitting at the benches putting on their makeup, with their mirrors and myriad of cosmetics spread everywhere.

Of course the fun aspects of Tokyo are checking out the plastic food displays and trying out our ‘Japlish’ on the poor unsuspecting shop assistants. We had to buy a LAN cable in an electronics store and were having a bit of difficulty.  Lois ends up drawing two laptops on a piece of paper, Ed draws a very intricate network hub, and then we connected them up.  Amazingly, the poor shop assistant got the gist and we ended up with what we needed.  Japan seems to not be into the wireless setup that has been prevalent in Europe and North America.  But the internet is speedy. And you will never go thirsty with all those vending machines on nearly every street corner (Sash was a fan of the grape Fanta).

What they say is true, the Japanese people are so very polite and go out of their way to help.  The yen takes a bit of getting used to, all those thousands.  We loved Tokyo, didn’t have much time to spend there but got a good feel of the enormity of the place.