2 Typhoons and an Earthquake - the end of the Kitsune Era

The Imperial Palace More little ones!!

The Tokyo Tower.......and views....from 150m high......

.....and 250m high.

A London bus in Ginza??!! Tokyo International Forum

Saturday 20th Sept. - Despite the weather forecast (predictions of typhoons!) we started …and continued…with a very, very hot day! Took the subway to Tokyo where we walked past a lovely square with fountains in it. Then, over to the East Gardens of the Imperial Palace which were very pretty. Lots more walking until we decided that these gardens were the only bit of the area worth going into! Walked down to Tokyo Tower which was opened in 1958. We went up to the first observation platform at 150m, then up to the Special Observatory at 250m. It made your legs wobble when you went up in the glass lift. Fabulous 360 degree views of Tokyo. Had a lovely Japanese curry on floor 2 where all the restaurants and shops were. Then we went by subway to the Tokyo International Forum with fabulous glass roof. A fabulous space ship like modern building; then to Ginza which is a posher shopping area with classy stores (and a London bus!). Had a coffee and then went back to the hotel as we were absolutely done in!!

Golden Goddess Cemetary Nezu Shrine

Festival with portable shrine going to the temple

Japanese dancing. Ginza again - in the rain.


Sunday 21st Sept. -
G felt earthquake last night - a 4.4 we think the website said. Rachel slpet right through it (are we surprised?).
Awoke (finally)to pouring rain today - and it carried on virtually all day. We came home rather wet.
Took subway to Nishi-Nippori station. We found the guide book route rather hard to follow as all the signs were in Japanese not English. We did our best and finally got ourselves to point 1, though on our own route!! Saw lots of lovely shrines / temples with a variety of interesting statues and decorations. At the Nezu shrine there was a festival with dancing at a local hall, a portable shrine being carried by lots of have clad men (And a few bare bums!!) and lots of stalls. We would have eaten there but we didn’t think we could do umbrella and food!! In the end we were too wet to stay any longer so we took the subway back to Ginza and had a mooch round (and got even wetter!). We went into some of the shops to escape the rain and had a lovely coffee and cake. When we could get no wetter we came back to the hotel and ate in the Stella restaurant on site. Lovely meal with fantastic service.

Views from 45th floor of Tokyo Metroploitan Building.


Monday 22nd Sept. -
Woke again to the pouring rain (yuc) so slowly had breakfast and packed to waste as much time as possible. We strung it out as check in was 11am latest and our flight left at 8.40pm. Luckily for us, by the time we had paid and left baggage with the Concierge, it had reduced to a drizzle. Today we went to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building where the North and South Towers had viewing platforms with shops and cafes on the 45th floor. It was fabulous even though the views were little hazy and cloudy. After that we popped to the Hanajuku area to see the shops - especially antique and gift shops. When we had had enough we caught the Friendly Limousine Bus to Narita Airport to catch our plane to Perth. Lovely calm, neat and pleasant airport where we chilled out til our flight was called.