Tokyo Diaries Day 8

Our last full day in Japan. Today we went on the one day Mt Fuji Hakone and Mt Komagatake tour. We travelled to Mt Fuji by bus and came back on the Shinkansen (the bullet train).

Travelled down the expressway to Mt Fuji - the buildings are really packed in, especially the residental ones as you get out of the centre of Tokyo. As 75% of Japan is mountainous, wherever there is some relaatively flat land, you will see houses all jammed in and rice paddy fields. At the end of Winter, beginning of Spring it is quite depressing as everything is brown and dark.


We stopped at the Mt Fuji Visitor centre, where we couldn't resist taking this picture in the toilet, of how you are meant to use the toilet! The view of Mt Fuji is beautiful.


On to the fourth stop at Mt Fuji. Apparently it is unusual to be able to go past the first stop. Probably because of the snow. It has recently snowed here, but the roads are not covered. It was extremely cold at the fourth stop.







Lunch was a traditional Japanese llunch at one of the hotels at Mt Fuji, Dave was very happy, after lunch he found a Galaga Machine to play. The view of Mt Fuji from the hotel was also impressive.



Next stop was Hakone, for a cruise of Lake Ashi. They have these funny little duck boats. The girls would have been impressed if they were here!





Off the boat for a trip up to the top of Mt Komagatake on the Ropeway. The view of Lake Ashi and the Pacific Ocean was spectacular, but it was very cold.





Back on to the bus (after warming myself with a can of coffee from a drink vending machine), and off to the rail station near Hakone, to get the Shinkansen (bullet train) back to Tokyo Station. The speed of these things is phenomenal. They swoosh through the station doing over 270km/hour, you barely have time to blink. I could of stood there for a while and marvelled at their speed.




We ate dinner at the hotel once we got back - they had a five course dinner special, so we relaxed in their Italian Restaurant, before I went to bed early (very tired).
It is now Thursday - our last day. We will go back to Asakusa to have a better look before we come back and catch the Narita Express train to Narita Interntional Airport.

Tokyo Diaries Day 7

Today we went on an organised tour, with Sunrise Tours. It was a nice change to walking all day (our feet are a little sore)!

We went on the Panoramic Tokyo tour.

Driving past the Tokyo tower...

our first stop was the Meiji Shrine which is a Shinto Shrine. There are two main religions in Japan - Shinto and Buddhism. After walking past the donated Sake barells ....


we arrived at the shrine, where we first had to cleanse ourseleves before going into the temple to say our prayer.

The clensing area:

The temple (you could not take pictures in the temple):

To pray, you throw a few coin donations into a box, bow twice, clap twice, say your prayer and then bow again. We found out what the little boards/notes were, they are Ema (Votive Tablets) which have personal prayers on them.


Back on the bus for our drive past the government buildings to the Imperial Palace East Garden, past the Watch Towers which sit on the Moat (there are ten moats around the Edo castle), we walked past some mounted police:


The gardens were nice, and I imagine they would be even nicer in a couple of weeks when spring actually hits and the blossoms are all out:






Next stop was a Buddhist temple - the Senso-Ji Temple, which backs onto the Asakusa Marketplace. A cool marketplace full of alll goodies Japanese - Kimono's, Fans, Sweets and more.



Hehehe ... where's Wally?




After a little bit of shopping we were off to our lunch, which was on the 12th floor looking out on to part of Tokyo Harbour. It was actually a french restaurant (we got to eat some steak!)



After finishing lunch, we got to enjoy a nice quite cruise on Tokyo Harbour, going under the Rainbow Bridge and past the man-made Island Odaiba:




Last stop was Odaiba. They actually have a replica of the Statue of Liberty here. Only a little bit of time to shop in the adjoining mall before heading back to the hotel.



Dave bought these funny looking sweets today to try when we got back to the room (he has been buying about 5 bags of different things to snack on a day, just to try them out!)

Tonight was Dave's pick for dinner. He decided on a downstairs Italian Restaurant. Once again, Japanese on the menu and italian (thank god we have eaten at a few italian restaurants, so we could pick a couple of things to eat). The highlight of the meal though was the magician who came and did a personal magic show for us, he was really good and really entertaining!