Our last full day in Tokyo. As I said yesterday, we were planning a split strategy. Sofia went off to the zoo to see pandas and then to an out of town theme park to see Hello Kitty! I carried on in town. First up, the Tokyo National Museum, to look at the history of Japanese art and artifacts. An interesting overview, with some great quirky things, such as the terracotta grave statues which I wasn’t allowed to photograph. Or one of the very early editions of The Tale of Genji, the ‘first novel’. (by early, think it was 13th century)
By the way, cute. The Japanese appear to love cute. Everywhere has cute mascots etc. Here’s the museum ones.
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Then back down to Ginza, where I treated myself to sushimi. Not worth trying this with Sofia, as sushi and sushimi definitely not on her list. Again, I saw how pretty cheap Tokyo food can be, paying 1700Y for lunchtime fixed meal, of sushimi (prawn, tuna, salmon and other stuff), miso soup, rice, pickled vegetables, something with noodles and savory egg custard.
Then a wander round the Imperial East Gardens, the only part of the palace grounds you’re allowed to access. One of the challenges I’ve found is trying to understand the history of the place, as the signage, although much of it in English, does not seem to explain what things were or how they realte. this was true in both the museum and in the gardens. It wasn’t until nearly the end of the walk that I worked out that there used to be a HUGE palace in that area.
And I also saw my first Japanese style toilet. I’d read about them, but not seen them, until now. Thankfully for me, the bathrooms also had the western style ones too!
Back to the hotel, for relaxing, doing some washing and organising our luggage forwarding. We’re off into the mountains tomorrow and packing light. The luggage is going directly to Nagoya.
For dinner, we again stuck to local, heading up to the alleys around the Shenzi temple. After being refused service in one small restaurant (we think they were closing, it could just be they did not want to deal with English) we found somewhere that served up the Japanese omelette style of food, which I had with the deep fried pork cutlettes. Very tasty!
And that’s it for Tokyo. We’re here at the end of the holiday for one further night, but only limited sightseeing.
Today’s photos can be seen on Flickr
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