Corcoran's Travel Blog!: Day 5

We made it to Tokyo!! We had about an 11 hour flight over which we dozed off and on. Landed in Tokyo and got on a train right to our hotel. We got to our hotel around 10pm and went right to bed!

Monday we were scheduled to do a bike tour but it was supposed to rain so they cancelled the tour. We had to scramble a bit because we weren't really prepared for that. We contacted a walking tour and they could take us. It was a 6 hour walking tour of the West side of Tokyo city (which is huge). Our guide met us in our lobby at 10:30am - he was a short little Asian man as you would assume and it was just Kevin and I and him! He took us all over the west side of the city and of course it rained the entire day. It was like a light rain all day, nothing like we see back home, but they do not like to get wet. Every single person has an umbrella and can't get a drop of water on them. They have bags you put your wet umbrella in when you go into a store and all. We only had one umbrella between Kevin and I that we brought from home. I just wore my rain jacket and he was very worried about me. :) And kept asking if we were cold - its so humid here! As my loving husband told me this morning, my hair shows how humid it is! It was like 70 degrees yesterday but humid and sticky.

Lunch was an adventure. We went to this mall and had like 10 places to eat. Well everything is in Japanese so we had a hard time reading it. We told our guide we don't eat Seafood (which is like a sin here) and we realized later he didn't know/understand what seafood was. To be safe, we chose an Italian place - should be safe? We had no idea what we were ordering but it was pasta and tomato sauce. Well it came, with anchovies all over it. Needless to say, we ate very little of it.

Our guide was good, his English was okay. You really had to work to understand him. He tried so hard with everything and was very prepared for the day. Japanese people are very nice and courteous. If they bump into you on the street they say 'sorry'. I had a lady on the train tell me she hopes we enjoy their city. Just very nice people! The funny story of the day was at the end of the day, we were exhausted! We were waiting for an elevator and Kevin yawned. Our guide was so concerned! He goes 'Sir, are you going to be okay'. It was the funniest thing, he was so worried about Kevin. Note to self, keep yawns to yourself!!!

Last story... in our train station that is connected to our hotel we are staying at, there is a Starbucks. So yesterday morning we had some time to kill so we went there and sat for a little bit. It was on the upper level so it overlooked the train station! Oh my goodness, the amount of people was insane! They were all dressed the same, men wearing black slacks and either a white or light blue button down - no tie, carrying a briefcase. The women in very dark or neutral colored skirts/dresses. No expression on their faces, no cell phones, just walking to work. Needless to say, we stick out. White people, tall people, and wearing any color but white shirts!

We got back to our hotel around 4:30pm. We going to take a little nap before dinner and well that just turned into going to bed. We slept until about 5am this morning! We definitely feel refreshed and ready to go on another walking tour of the city today (which is Tuesday for us).

Mile Count: 12.4 miles

First thing we did was go to a temple. It was super peaceful as it was raining. Beautiful grounds.

Sake barrels.

Before you go into a temple, you must purify yourself. So you wash both hands and your mouth. Cool experience.

In front of the temple. This is the spot to go on New Years day. There is like a wishing well that you do when you go here. Throw a coin in, bow, clap, and bow again. People will wait hours in line to get to the wishing well. We made a wish and all but there were no photos allowed.

One of the shopping streets we went down.

The busiest intersection in Tokyo. In a normal business day, not raining, there will be 2,000 people that cross this intersection at a time. We have seen videos of it. We did get to cross it. People say to go up to the Starbucks, get a coffee, and watch the people cross.