Friday May 8 2009

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I used to work with a Japanese fellow, we called him Adam, at the University of KY Cardiovascular research center. He recently moved back to Okayama, Japan. We told him of our trip to Japan and he graciously offered to fly to Tokyo to show us around the city.

First, we had breakfast at a cafe. When you think of breakfast you think bacon and eggs right? Not here, they eat everything from hot dogs, rice balls to miso soup for breakfast. Lucky for me they had muffins=)
After we headed to Tokyo Tower and went to the top to see some amazing views of the city. I also got my picture taken with some of the Japanese school girls with their super cute, and fashionable, uniforms. Adam explained that some parents of high school girls choose the school based on the uniform as some are professionally designed.

This is a very fashionistic city for young ladies from high school to their 30s and sometimes beyond. Most every women in the train and subway station has on a fashionable pair of heels in which the traverse stairs, escalators and they can even run a good pace in them too.

Next we walked around the Ginza area, kind of like the 5th avenue of NYC. I put my blinders on and gave Camden my wallet so I would not be tempted to enter the stores.

We headed to the Imperial Palace in Hibiya, home of the Emperor, in the heart of the city surrounded by the beautiful gardens and a river, or mote, that surrounds the palace.

For lunch, we went to a very nice sushi restaurant, recommeded by Adam, on the 30 something floor of an extremely nice building. The food was so wonderful and fresh that I wondered how I would ever eat sushi back in the US again=)

The next stop was the Asakusa Jinja Shrine where we deposited 100 yen into a box, pulled out a stick with a number on it, and picked up our fortune from the corresponding drawer. Adam and I　received regular fortunes while poor Camden received a bad one. To negate his negative fortune, we hung it on a wire next to the shrine. The shrine was really beautiful with a sea of souvenir vendors leading up to the steps of the shrine. We burned some incense to purify ourselves before entering the temple.

We hailed a taxi to take us back to the hotel to pick up our bags and then headed to the Haneda airport to catch our flight to Sapporo. We passed by the famous Tokyo Dome on our way. We had a busy and successful day.

Once in Sapporo, we took a train to our hotel, The Toyoko Inn near the Hokkaido University.

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