Tokyo Baby.......

Day 6

OK - so who's bright idea was it to spend a day in Tokyo????  Oh yeah - that would be me!!!!

It seemed like a good idea at the time..... I had a plan - I knew where I wanted to be, what I wanted to see and what I wanted to do.... I just didn't plan on the sheer amount of other tourists who also wanted to do the exact same thing!!!

So first things first ..... This was our first Bullet train journey of this trip. We would get the horribly early Bullet from Kyoto into Tokyo station, then start playing with the subways (this is where Scott comes into his own).

Now, we have yet to see Mount Fuji on any of our other trips, so we were hoping third time was a charm..... And it was. About an hour and a bit outside of Kyoto, there was Fuji san in all his glory. How had we not seen him before?!?!?!  It seemed everyone got excited about him being on view and all you could hear were the clicks of cameras. Of course, we were on the right side of the train, so had no direct view..... But that's not going to stop me - I had the perfect view from the inbetween carriges bit (next to the loos!!).

Almost at Tokyo now, so finally planning to be made. We were going to make our way straight to the Sky Tree to book our tickets for later that day, then move on to the rest of the itinerary, go back to the Sky Tree, do the biz, then get the train home again....... so far so good.

Other places I NEEDED to visit were:
- Senso-Ji Temple and the rest of Asakusa
- Ueno and Ameyoko-cho (the park and the market)
- Shinjuku (just because)

See - not so bad .... We had done more on previous trips, so I was sure we would get it all done.

We arrived in Tokyo bang on time (no surprise there) and headed straight for the subway ..... Problem 1 - since the opening of the Sky Tree, they have changed the metro system to accommodate the new Sky Tree stop..... and Scott was a bit confused.  He got over it (without much grumbling ha!) and got me to the Sky Tree.

It's an impressive area.... With a huge shopping center underground (there is NOTHING you can't buy without a Sky Tree on it), restaurants, bars and an aquariam! So with an excited skip in my step, we climbed the four floors to the entrance (by escalator ... Fortunately) and were directed to the ticket desk by a lovely lady dressed like the Sky Tree ....... It's then the world stopped moving - literally!!! The queue for that days tickets was mahoosive ......... Some incredibly helpful chap but a sign on the doors telling us that the wait to BUY tickets for that day was 2 hours!! Bugger......

If we queued for the tickets, we would lose the day and wouldn't have time to do anything else and by the look on Scott's face, I could see there was no way this man was going to queue for 2 hours for a ride in a big elevator ....... Again - bugger!!

So, we sat in one of the very lovely open air cafe areas and contemplated our options .... Well I say contemplated - I think the decision had already been made when he saw the queue.  So all in all, this is the third time I have been to Tokyo and the third time I have 'seen' the Sky Tree but have yet to get into it ...... Ahhhh - one day!?!??!??

Oh well .... Moving on. Back on the subway and off to Asakusa and the Sensoji temple. I know we have been here before and I know we are going over old ground, but I love the place ..... Plus there are some great stalls in the way to the temple - shopping time!!!

This day is going to be lacking photos. I didn't take as many photos as I usually do ..... Basically I've got them all already, so this time I took the scenery in rather than stopping to fight with other tourists to get that perfect shot..... And there are lot of tourists here!!!

The place was heaving. Scott left me to go it alone along the stalls and I made good use and bought a 'few' things!!!  We paid our respects at the temple and I bought a fortune.  It was only a 'half fortune' but it said things at work were going to be good for me..... That's great, but where were the lottery numbers?!?!?!

As has happened a lot this week, time is getting away from us so time to move on. We are off to Ueno  to go to the park and hit the market. Now, can we all remember, that we came to Japan in November to see the autumn leaves.... Everything is supposed to be glorious red and gorgeous - but not for us!! It's VERY warm here and today in Tokyo it was 21 degrees, hence the leaves are still very green.  There is some red around but more in the rural areas in the west and south. Needless to say, Ueno park was not the glorious red I was hoping for, but still a very pretty park, and there is always something going on - lots of entertainers. 

After having a wander round, we made our way to the market (Ameyokocho). There is a lovely tea stall here which I wanted to visit and the welcome was the same as always..... Got loads of tea to sample  (I seemed to get doubles cos Scott wasn't playing), green tea sweets and some origami. I bought lots of tea to bring home ....... Well - after all that it felt rude not to!

I tried to persuade Scott that we needed to go to the zoo to see the Pandas, but he wasn't playing that game - especially as we queued up for hours last time and only saw them for 2 minutes - oh well - it was worth a shot!!

We are both starting to drop a bit and we are both hot and bothered, so we decided to catch the train back to Kyoto an  hour earlier than planned. It ended up being a long day but I still managed to see the things I wanted to see, even if they were all at ground level and not up a height!

We made it back to the apartment about 10pm, absolutely shattered ..... Well we had been up since 5:30am (thought this was a holiday?!?!). Don't know if I would plan that kind of day again, especially as we didn't get to do the one thing we planned on doing.........

Tomorrow is going to be a very easy day - a stroll round Kyoto. Going to do the Philosophers Path and visit lots of Temples and Shrines ........

So until next time ..... Oyasumi Nasai xxx