The Photography Museum & on to Beijing

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Another beautiful day in Tokyo. We packed up, checked out and headed to the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography. The subway ride was easy, but when we arrived in Ebisu, there were no signs so finding the museum involved asking 5 or 6 people for directions. Many of them had a hard time and kept turning the map around and around which was weird. Photography is a much bigger deal in Japan than it is in the US. The museum was on the scale of the ICP in New York- big. We saw 2 large exhibits one on Surrealism and the other a then and now study of the Forbidden City. I made sure to jot down some of the locations so we can see them when we visit.
We picked out lunch as the department store and then had a hard time finding a place to eat. We ended up in a small green space beside a parking tot that wasn’t very appealing. The Ginza area is like time square in NY so there aren’t a lot of places to sit,
The balance of the day was devoted to travel. Jack was in Business Class and I was in coach for the 4 hour flight to Beijing so I watched an old, junky movie with Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington. It was a great way to kill 142 minutes. We landed in the very large and modern airport and now comes the trick question: How do you say “Vente” in Beijing? Answer: The same as in Japan - the first thing we saw in the airport was Starbucks. We didn’t get to the hotel until after 11 and then our visit here got off to a great start. When you fill out the paperwork, your birth date is prominent. As we were checking-in, the reservation clerk looked up from the paperwork, gave me a big smile and told me I looked very good. Flattery will get you far. Our room is very nice and twice the size of our rooms in Japan which is no surprise.
It’s almost 7 so now that I’ve finished my blog entry, I’m going to wake Jack so we can have a leisurely breakfast before we start our day.

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Photos

Photography Museum
Every where you look the architecture is creative.

Bento Boxes
This is the "take-out", fast food lunch that is on sale every where you look in every train and subway station. It was hard to throw away the boxes.

Desserts
It was very hard to choose.