Views from the 33rd floor aren't bad

---

Safe, but tiring, arrival in Japan. Got to the hotel 23 hours after leaving Cardiff...but well worth the travelling. Hotel is a cracker - check out its website www.parkhoteltokyo.com - and with a room on the 33rd, and penultimate, floor we have an awe-inspiring cityscape view. Can't see how Bill and Scarlett could remain so bored in the film as Tokyo has such attractive architecture and attractions.

Spent Sunday fighting off jet-lag and getting our bearings but were up bright and early to eat breakfast with the very many commuters, after which Mr and Mrs T visited Shinjuku and Harajuku where we toured the Meiji-Jingu shrine and temple built to commemorate Emperor Meiji after his death in 1912. With the numbers of Japanese visiting to pray, pen blessings on votive boards, and be generally deferential it's obviously a very holy and important place - and wasted on philistines like us who couldn't understand the vast majority of signage written only in Japanese. In fact navigation around Tokyo has so far been by a combination of instinct, guesswork and a trail of breadcrumbs - very few streets have road signs; only on main thoroughfares is there any directional instructions in English and after a while one neon-encrusted skyscraper begins to look like another!

Having very quickly got bored of our 33rd floor view of the Tokyo skyline we thought we'd take a look at it from a more dizzying 47th floor at the Caretta Shiodome Skytower restaurant. Mrs T had to be scraped off the side of the glass elevator that runs up the skytower's exterior, but, once inside, the restaurants' menu prices saw her conquer her fear and get back in quickly enough!

On our way out for dinner this evening we bumped into a sumo who is staying in the hotel - but he could tell Mr T was on the prowl for food and gave him a wide berth! Food is reasonably priced and although the menus are a bit of a challenge we've not gone hungry...or into anaphylactic shock! Hope all is well at home and Alfie is behaving himself - and if he asks, no we're not visiting the theme park where cats can be stroked for 400 yen...

Our next couple of days include: visiting Asakusa and the Buddhist temple Senso-ji; trip on the river; Tsukiji fish market...and packing up to move onto New Zealand.

---

Photos

Mr Todd at Meiji-jingu
After a leisurely stroll through parkland, surrounded by cypress trees, these beautiful pagodas mark the entrance to the shrine area

Shinjuku near Times Square
Very little English script making navigation a little challenging

Comments

[Jason]

Jealous, very jealous
Glad you got there safe, hope the jet lag wasn't too bad. As you look like you constantly suffer from jet-lag Russ, it probably didn't bother you but I hope Sarah was ok! I'm very jealous and also suprised the signs aren't in Welsh as well as Japanese. What were they thinking!

[Sophie]

Konnichiwa! Hope ur havin a wkd time! Thought u may like 2 kno that Uncle Nick will be doin a radio interview on New Zealand's "9 til Noon" radio programme, either next Tuesday or next Wednesday. It's regarding Spillers. So listen out!!