Every bit like you'd expect!

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In the interests of being technological and up to date and all that, I feel that I have to spend a few minutes writing about the wonderful megalopolis we're currently winging our way around at lightning speed. With only 4 full days here and so much to see there's little point wasting much time sleeping, and we currently have a spare few minutes in our tightly planned itinerary so I thought I would do the first up-to-date blog of our travels so far.
In only 2 days here is a list of the stuff we've seen and done - I'll keep it very tiny (in true Tokyo style).


*Mount Fuji - from the 45th floor of the municipal government building
*The Tokyo department store, Isetan, and its ceremonial opening - feeling like royalty as every staff member bows and wishes you good morning as you walk around
*The Imperial Palace gardens - very Zen and peaceful
*Many insane gaming halls - sensory overload in extremis
*Neon, Neon, and more Neon in Electric Town
*The opening day of the May Sumo tournament - ceremony to the hilt, and huge men throwing salt (and each other) around. Fantastic, and one of the experiences of our travels so far.
*Traditional Japanese Onsen - public hot spring bathing. Totally intense for a non-local, we spent an hour scrubbing, rinsing, soaking and then scrubbing, rinsing and soaking again - segregated and with no clothes!
*The Edo-Tokyo museum with its intricate scale models of old Edo (Tokyo), and a very informative history lesson from the 1600s to WWII
*Many local and traditional eateries - think sitting on the floor, Sake, chopsticks and lots of slurping!
*An endless supply of "Cute" from tiny little street diggers, to the ingenious way they can fit an entire bathroom into the space of a toilet.


Tomorrow it's a day-trip to Kamakura and the world's largest seated Buddha statue, and lots and lots of temples. We expect to be templed out before heading to the world's largest fish market on Tuesday morning at 5.30am to see the chaos and have sushi for breakfast.

My most pertinent comment at this time is that the Tokyoites are incredibly helpful and very friendly (and tolerant of our menu-pointing food ordering), and that Tokyo, for a emormous megatropolis, is incredibly peaceful and ordered. Oh, and the public transport is amazingly efficient.

Over and out.....

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Photos

Sumo - Torikumi
The initial psychological warfare is over and the bout begins.

Dohyo-iri - the colourful entering of the ring ceremony
Makuuchi-rikishi wearing ceremonial aprons.

One of the top sumo wrestlers arriving
He is attended by a sword-bearer and attendent.

Opening of Isetan Department Store
This very formalceremony occurs at opening time every day.

View of Mt. Fuji
From the 45th floor of the Municipal Government Buildings.

Comments

[anonymous]

At last something I really know about...
It's been a while since I've been able to dole out an interesting fact about something you've seen. Here is my latest attempt. The only grandmaster or Yokozuna at the moment is Asashoryu. He is from Mongolia, 184cm tall and weighs 144kg. So he's a lot smaller than me, but a lot heavier. Reckon I could give him a slap though because he's obviously a big girl. He's been criticised for a number infractions of the code of conduct. He is the first yokozuna to be disqualified in a match - for hair pulling. And he also allowed himself to be photographed wearing a suit instead of traditional costume and has so far refused to adopt Japanese citizenship. - northernrich