Miller round the world Day 7

---

6:45 wakeup. As instructed, we get our carry-on bags packed for an overnight in Tokyo and our main bags packed for storage at the hotel. After forcing ourselves to eat something at the same incredible buffet, we take the LRT train from the airport to the main station and transfer there to the bullet train to Tokyo. This train has a top speed of 320 k/hr. Along the way urban and rural scenes whiz by. Nearing Tokyo, we can see the slopes of Mt. Fuji in the distance but most of the mountain is obscured by mist. 

Our Tokyo guides meet us at the first station in Tokyo and we get off at the next. Our guide is Hiromi Sato, whom we are instructed to call Romi. She calls out the sights of downtown Tokyo as we drive to a restaurant for lunch. Yet another amazing meal, Japanese with apparently a French influence.

After lunch we board the bus again and drive to the city's Shito shrine, the most important in Japan. We disembark and stroll through the beautiful forest surrounding the shrine buildings. The trees actually resemble those you see in traditional Japanese paintings. We pass through several enormous Tori gates, where you must keep to the left or right as you go through because the centre is reserved for deities. We finally arrive in a huge square with the main temple on one side. First you purify yourself in a washing ritual: scoop water using a long-handled wooden cup, wash left hand, right hand, mouth and then rinse the cup by tipping it straight up. The ritual for asking favor is to approach the holy area of the shrine, clap twice, bow twice, make a prayer or wish and state your name, then bow again and retreat. We see many people doing just that. Apparently at New Year's, more than a million people visit this shrine in a single day, using the main square as a collection point.  On our way out we visit a gift shop. 

More site seeing on the bus. We drive by the Crown Prince's palace and the Imperial Palace which are enormous pieces of property (110 hectares for the Imperial Palace) right in downtown Tokyo, off limits to virtually everyone. Tokyo is one of the world's largest cities with a population of 30 million. It is like Osaka but bigger, busier and higher. Endless rows of skyscrapers, each distinct and gleaming. Again, despite the crowds of people and cars, everything is orderly and clean, almost spookily so.
 
We eventually disembark in the Ginza area, the premier shopping district in Tokyo and one of the world's trend setters. Violet visits a department store while I head off in search of Tokyo's leading music store, Yamano, which offers 7 floors of CDs, DVDs and musical instruments, with floors divided by genres. I find the jazz floor and find several items of interest. On the classical floor I am thrilled to find a 15 CD set by Angela Hewitt on sale!

The bus then takes us to our hotel, the Conrad Hilton. I have stayed at some very nice hotels in my life but nothing approaches this hotel. Our room is the size of an apartment with almost every luxury you can imagine. I am able to audition my CDs on the audio system provided. I mean, the chef is Gordon Ramsay. No kidding.   
We meet in the lobby at 7:30 and are bussed to dinner at the Gonpachi restaurant. Again, a superb meal. This time it was 10 courses of individual Japanese masterpieces. We particularly enjoyed the deep fried crab balls covered with micro-thin strips of proscuito that waved with the heat generated by balls, as well as BBQ marinated black cod.
 
After dinner, Vi returned to the hotel by bus but I went on foot with a group, about a 20 minute walk. We walked through the Ginza area, which now was a maze of lights, kind of a cross between NYC and Vegas. The streets were quite crowded and our guide explained that many of them were businessmen ending their day around 10 or 11 o'clock, which is perfectly normal here. They typically still have an hour commute to get home. Arrived back about 11 and collapsed into bed.

---

Comments

[Marva]

Sounds wonderful
We appreciate very much the descriptions and the effort you are putting into the blog. Marva and David