Touring Tokyo – Day Three

27 Friday May 2016

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This was a lazy day of exploring. First in Shinjuku we wandered past the Cocoon Building

on our way to the Golden Gai (the Golden District). This area is known for its nightlife. It consists of several blocks packed with tiny, slightly ramshackle but buzzing bars. We chose to wander through in the morning – a completely different scene yet quite interesting.
We took this shady, tree-lined path back to the train station where we headed for Hamamatsucho.

As we walked from this train station to the lunch spot we were headed for yesterday we passed by these riverboats waiting patiently to start their day.

A great lunch at Munch’s Burgers

with great beer selection

then a wander over to the Tokyo Tower

which happened to be right behind the Zojohi Temple. A very odd site since every temple we’ve seen so far is surrounded by beautiful grounds or is high atop a mountain.

To the right of the above photo is a memorial of stone figures of unborn children.

Then back on the monorail to Haneda Airport and home to Iwakuni. All in all, a very fun and interesting Tokyo experience.

Touring Tokyo – Day Two

25 Wednesday May 2016

Posted by gwenhaynes in Uncategorized

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Sumo, Tokyo

After a great nights sleep we awoke to a beautiful day. Here’s the view from our window.

As part of the package price for our room we had a a choice of five breakfast options: Japanese & Western Buffet, American Breakfast, Japanese Breakfast, Chinese Buffet, and Japanese & Western Breakfast. Here’s Japan’s version of the American breakfast.

First course: green salad, fruit salad, corn soup, drinkable yogurt (w/blue cap), o.j. and coffee.

Second course: two kinds of sausage, ham, green beans, tomato/vegee something and soupy scrambled eggs.

After breakfast we wandered around the neighborhood. Most of Tokyo’s skyscrapers (and some of its most expensive land) are clustered here.

In 1991, when the city government moved into the massive 48-story Metropolitan Government Offices (also known as the twin towers) many started calling it shin toshin or the new capitol. The facade symbolizes a computer chip and the construction is very earthquake proof.

Right in the midst of all these high rise buildings is Shinjuku Central Park.

Can you see the buildings rising above the trees?

Here’s an adult playground/fitness station.

And a lovely water feature.

Now that it’s after 0930 we are headed back to the Government Building where there is a free observatory atop each tower. So up we go to the 46th floor to check out the sites of the city. The spire is the Tokyo Tower.

In the picture below the Tokyo Tower is in the distance. The tallest building from this angle is called the Little Empire State Building and the big grassy area in the center is the site of the stadium for the 2020 Summer Olympics.

Remember the view from our window? Here you can see our hotel below and the interesting building next door

and Shinjuku Central Park with the stone water feature across the street.

O.K. Enough of that. At noon we hopped the train for Hamamatsucho Station (just past the airport stop) for the highlight of our trip – the May 2016 Grand Sumo Tournament. We got there early so we could eat lunch beforehand and along the way to our selected lunch spot we came upon

with great Chicago style Pizza and an amazing selection of some of our favorite craft beer.

Sumo is the national sport of Japan and is almost 2000 years old. If you’ve ever wondered what this sport is all about as I have, here’s a good explanation. https://journals.worldnomads.com/picslyrics/story/71599/Netherlands/Sumo-wrestling-explained-do-you-know-how-to-Sumo This was a tournament of the highest ranking Sumo wrestlers in the world. Of the 40 participants 25 were from Japan, 8 from Mongolia, and the rest from China, Georgia, Russian, Egypt and Brazil.

It seemed like the entire tournament consisted of several minutes of ritualized moves and then 1-3 seconds of actual wrestling. Then it was on to the next duo.

So now we can say we’ve been to a Grand Sumo Tournament in Tokyo.

Touring Tokyo – Day One

24 Tuesday May 2016

Posted by gwenhaynes in Uncategorized

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Tokyo

Yea! I’m back in Japan. I arrived late Wednesday night. Thursday evening we met friends for a birthday pizza dinner and on Friday afternoon Chris and I biked to the Iwakuni airport (which has great parking by the way)

and took off on a weekend trip to Tokyo. Chris is having a hard time learning how to say Tokyo in Japanese. It’s To-kyo, not To-ke-yo. He just can’t seem to hear the difference and blames it on his Oklahoma roots.

If you’ve never flown in Japan it’s a real experience. Everything is so peaceful and orderly and clean. Even the tarmac is clean and orderly. My favorite is as we are leaving, the ground crew lines up and waves as we go by

and then bows. Can you believe it?

Here’s a shot of Marine Corp Air Station Iwakuni. You can see some of Chris’ biking terrain just outside of town.

Chris had been to Tokyo once before after he climbed Mt. Fuji so he had a pretty good idea how the transit system worked. This is the Rail and Subway Map we used.

Haneda Airport is a little south of six o’clock on the map. From there we took the Monorail up to the circle, then a train out to Shinjuku at about nine o’clock on the circle. This took about 45 minutes. With two million people passing through every day, this is the busiest train station in the world.