A day in Tokyo!

View from the Tokyo Government Metropolitan building

Last night we landed in Tokyo to start our two week ski and sight-seeing holiday. The airport is a bit over an hour from the city centre and we opted to catch a limosine bus (roughly $30pp). We knew our hotel was close to a train station but had no idea how to get from the station to it, so after the bus dropped us at Tokyo train station we just caught a taxi to the hotel. Surprisingly it was less than $10, but it was only a short trip.
Before we left, we were talking about how every time we go to talk to someone in another language Spanish just pops into our heads. As we collected our bags from the bus, the baggage handler asked (in English) "two bags?". "Si," Brandon replied, and I wet myself laughing.

First Cherry blossoms spotted!

This morning we got up and searched for somewhere for breakfast with not much luck. We ended up just having a toasted sandwich and coffee, followed by a stop at a bakery a couple hours later. It was a grey and dreary day unfortunately, here's hoping for some blue skies in some of our photos. Our aim today was to head to two shrines close to our hotel. When we got to the first one, we realised we were too early. Luckily Kanda Myojin, just around the corner, was open. So we had a quick little look around, feeling a bit awkward and watching what everyone else was doing for cues. Luckily I remembered that I had read you are meant to wash your hands and mouth as you enter the shrine.

It's amazing how the shrines are just smack bang in the middle of business buildings. There were already quite a few people at the Kanda Myojin but when we went back to Yushima Seido there were only a few people there. Yushima Seido is dedicated to Confucius and is very simple. There is a main hall that has an empty central area, but for a few large rocks lying in specific positions. Around the edges are statues of different things.

The cherry blossoms are tantalisingly close, with a street here and there that has burst into flower, but mostly the trees are standing bare and ugly around the city.

Later we caught the train to Shinjuku to go to the main information centre in Tokyo and go to the viewing platform in the Government Metropolitan building. It was surprisingly easy to find because as you get off the train there are signs in the subway, you don't actually go out onto the street to walk to the building. There are a number of different lookouts across Tokyo like this. The Metropolitan building is free and the others (Tokyo Skytree and Tokyo Tower) cost upwards of $15 per person, so we opted for the free one to keep to our budget. The information centre in on the ground floor. We went to find out how to buy our Nikko two day passes for tomorrow. Even though we aren't going to be there two days, it is slightly cheaper to get the two day pass than just buying return tickets there, and a lot easier than trying to figure out how to buy each ticket individually. We had to go to Asakusa to the Tobu information centre to buy the pass but it was very easy to find because it is inside the train station.

Tonight was an interesting dinner. We were both feeling a bit unwell, I blame lunch, and so we tried to find some sushi. Not sushimi, just sushi. no such luck so we just ordered fried fish and rice. I wondered aloud to Brandon how you eat whole fried fish with chop sticks. The answer was obvious when fish that were part way between the size of white bait and edible arrived. I know you are most likely meant to put the whole thing in your mouth, but the bones in these fish would have caused serious internal injuries I'm sure. We did our best to eat them I promise, but it was really hard. Even worse, on the way back we discovered we could have bought a plain ol' sushi roll from any one of many corner stores. Maybe we should have got the horse sushimi...