Sarah is blogging again. The reason is that I can do it a lot faster than Alan and then I get to do something other than watch the back of his head for 4 hours. He will comment, as per usual, in red. 4 hours! Geez she exaggerates.
We woke today to the first fully sunny day we have had here, and of course it was a travelling day. We checked out of our smokey hotel around 10.15, caught the tram to the station, stocked up on sandwiches for the trip and got on the bullet train to Shin-Osaka. We then changed trains after buying some more sandwiches and headed to Tokyo. In total we were travelling 5 hours but it flew by really quickly. It makes a difference when you have something to look at out the window unlike on a plane.
After Alan had had a nap on the train, I put him on 'Mount Fuji" lookout while I had a nap. I woke some time later to find him again asleep and no photos taken. I wasn't asleep, I was meditating. Just then I turned my head and sure enough, Mount Fuji was visible outside the left side of the train. We took a few blurred photos, which you will see in today's photos but more will be taken when we head down that day on Saturday for three nights.
Again with my perfect prepared instructions, we disembarked the bullet train one stop before Tokyo's main station and changed to a local train. 2 stops later and we were in the vacinity of our hotel. Well, sort of. This is one place we won't be walking to and from the station every day but the hotel runs a free shuttle every half hour. On top, the shuttle arrived at the pick up point and 10 minutes later we pulled up in front of our beautiful expensive hotel. We knew we were in rich people land when they meet you at the shuttle and quickly take the bags from you. I wasn't sure if the small girl would be able to lift our heavy bags but she managed just fine. Check-in was a breeze and the lovely lady with our bags escorted us to our room, in the executive area of the hotel.
We are on the 20th floor, looking straight out at Tokyo Tower. The bed in this room would not have fitted in the room we had in Hiroshima. We have a lovely balcony, although it is way too cold to stay out there for too long, and a bathroom complete with spa bath. I can see that bath getting a workout in the next five nights we are here. We have the biggest king size bed ever. We could sleep 4 people in it and still not touch each other.
On our way out to look for dinner, we asked if we could cash a travellers cheque. They looked at us like we were strange. Of course you can cash a travellers cheque. They even have a special desk to do it from. Finally, we are cashed up. At our previous hotels they backed away in horror when we asked if they could cash a travellers cheque.
We took a while guess at which direction to walk in and found we were heading for a number of restaurants. On the way we stopped in awe at the people picnicing in the park at 6.30pm, in about 6 degrees. We thought this was strange but on the way back about 2 hours later, the number of picnicers had grown in size, many of them with rugs on the concrete path. What strange land have we wandered into?! We also saw a couple climbing his dirt track, and she had rollerblades on. It's surreal. By the time we had finished our dinner and were making our way back to our hotel, it was probably about 3 or 4 degrees and there were more people turning up to picnic in this little park next to our hotel. Young people, businessmen in their suits, anyone and everyone. It must be some sort of tradition here. Maybe they don't feel the cold.
We had dinner in a restaurant called Miami Gardens and were somewhat surprised when we went in to find it was an Italian restaurant. A nice spaghetti bolagnaise and a seafood pizza.
We are now back in our hotel room, looking at the lights of the Tokyo Tower, contemplating our day tomorrow. I think the first thing on the agenda will be a sleep in. It looks like Alan has decided that we won't do Disneyland and DisneySea. He has found another amusement park that looks, well, amusing. Well we've done Disneyland in Anaheim twice and also in Orlando so I would prefer to try a new different park. Bring on Yomiuriland I say.
Oh and one final thing for the day, it has taken us 6 days, but we finally found chocolate milk! Woohoo!!! My bones are becoming brittle from lack of milk.
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