Today we started out from our hotel at about 8:30 in the morning, intent on walking to the Imperial Palace area of Tokyo. This actually only ended up taking us about an hour. The nice thing about the walk was we got to see some regular streets of Tokyo and were taken by the cleanliness, the flower pots and flower beds, numerous works of sculpture, as well as the many well-placed localized maps at street level, along our route.
Again the weather was amazing, clear and a high around +24, with humidity around 50%.
Also, there are vending machines everywhere, mostly on the edge of streets, so you can get just about anything, any time of the day, this photo was taken from our hotel room on the 16th floor.
We signed up online for the Imperial Palace tour about three weeks ago, booking two of the last spots for this morning's tour. It was a guided tour for about 100 people, led by a Japanese guide, which took about 90 minutes. We non-Japanese (about 8 of us) were provided with English electronic audio guides for translation. The grounds we could see were beautiful with many colourful flowers and very interesting trees and shrubs. There was one hedge made up of 20 different varieties of bushes/trees which gave it a multi-coloured appearance. The Palace itself is fairly nondescript, (Eve expected something much grander and "Imperial") but the history is amazing.
Only a few specific parts of the Imperial Palace grounds are available for public touring, not surprising as it is the official residence of the Emperor and Empress. The entire Imperial Palace grounds is surrounded by a moat. Many security staff were accompanying the tour, ensuring nobody got off the beaten path.
After our Palace tour, we proceeded to Tokyo Station (the main hub for Japan Rail trains and subway lines) and the mall attached. We did a little window shopping, and stopped for lunch in the mall, at a Chinese restaurant, where I had an amazing bowl of soup(see picture attached of plastic rendition).
Most restaurants display plastic models of the food served, in their windows. This was very helpful for us to order as we just took the waitress out to the "sample" and pointed!
After lunch we wandered toward the Ginza area (on the way back towards the hotel), went in a few shops, took lots of pictures, and checked out a couple of department stores. Of course, in a stationery store, halfway around the World, what do I hear? "Look, there's a guy with a Roughrider hat on"(the Cult is everywhere). We went into the famous Waco Department store (a landmark). We entered the store in the ladies accessories department. The first few items we saw were over 100,000,000 (One hundred million) Yen, which is over $100,000 Canadian dollars, so needless to say we didn't stay long and we didn't buy anything!
We were curious about some of the department stores as we had heard the most interesting place to find good buys for food are in the basements of department stores. We found one of these at the Matsuzakaya Department store. There we found everything from ice creams, chocolates, lots of baking and pastries, liquors, sushi, produce, meats (all very thinly sliced) and many options for take home dinners. Everything had an amazing presentation, tempting every taste bud!
No trip of ours would be complete without the discovery of a Pub. The "Ginza Lion Beer Hall" was our discovery today. What attracted us was a big sign outside saying "Beer Hall"!! Anywhere which has a beer menu, is worth a look! They have many different types of beer, almost all brewed in Japan. It's a large German pub with their servers dressed in German outfits. The building was also quite interesting, having been built in 1934. The interior is amazing with a huge tile mosaic behind the bar and some tiled pictures on the walls and pillars.
We found it to be very well priced for beer and food, serving an abundance of German dishes, but also many Japanese and Korean foods as well. We were delighted with our pub find, but even more so when we saw one about a block from the hotel (Whoo Hoo!)
Down the street from the pub and on the edge of Ginza, we also browsed through a grocery store. It was very interesting. We've been on the lookout for Ginger Ale (which mixes with our Duty free Crown Royal purchase) the last few days and (after only seeing it at McDonald's last night) we finally found some here. We also found beer, 24 pack for about $50 Canadian. The "meat" department was basically full of seafood selections, but very cheap compared to the seafood at our supermarkets! The produce department was interesting as most of the fruits and vegetables are packaged; for example each leek was wrapped in plastic, fruit was available in singles or in multiples, but all had a plastic package - imagine each banana and apple individually wrapped!
We returned to the hotel with bit of time before our appointment with Kim, facilitating a mini Happy Hour. We took a break and turned the tv on. At the Sheraton there was only CNN International, with the Japanese translation requiring heavy concentration to hear the English in the background. All other stations were Japanese, with only Sports making any sense to us. Here at the Dai-Ichi Hotel, we actually have two (!!!) English stations, CNN International and BBC Worldwide News. Both hotels have delivered basic English newspapers to our rooms each morning, which is nice. Probably like at home, its mostly news of the H1N1 flu pandemic.
We were happy to finally meet (Greg's middle daughter) Sarah's boyfriend, Kim. They met while both attending the University of Yamaguchi last school year (united by their love of beer!). He came to meet us at the hotel from his home in Yokohama, about 30 minutes south of downtown Tokyo by train. Kim works in Marketing for a Toshiba company in Kawasaki, Japan. We were all a bit nervous about the meeting as Kim speaks Chinese (Mandarin), Korean, Japanese and some English. We promised Sarah we'd speak slowly, but all seemed to go smoothly, with Kim only consulting his electronic translator a few times. We discussed a variety of subjects from Sarah and the Saskatchewan Roughriders, to our families and homes. We met for drinks in our hotel lounge,exchanged some gifts, then proceeded for supper to the "Ginza Lion" in our neighborhood.
We ordered a selection of dishes (Korean style pizza - apparently a Sarah favourite) "Chi Chi Imi", steamed squid, chicken in a light sauce, shrimp and Japanese style Caesar Salad. It should be noted that Japanese portions are more modest and not like the North American food portions. Of course, their selection of beers were given the proper attention! All in all, we had a very pleasant evening together.
After three full days of planned (constant) activities, Saturday may be a play-it-by-ear day - no concrete plans yet so stay tuned!
2025-02-09