Travel to Tokyo: This Outward journey is a small tourist guide, divided by section on our travel in Japan.

• 25/06/2008 - 00:00
• Author: Yuki Sakuma
• Japan
• 0 Comments
• Read in IT

Hi !! here we are again with the Tokyo section of our "chronicles". This time I'll be chatting about the time we spent in the marvelous Japanese capital. Though the previous article was about Kyoto, our first stop, we spent much more time in Tokyo. In the 8 days of our visit we saw much the city had to offer. Each section had specialties, like Akihabara's unmatched electronics and manga shopping prowess, while Jinbocho is practically a gargantuan book shop! But don't think this is all Tokyo had to offer, there's much more, let's just touch on our journey as we left Kyoto.

    

After our Okonomiyaki dinner we slept and when we were roused at 8 o'clock the following morning we were greeted by a pleasant surprise of breakfast. As always, most of it was a surprise, but we ate as much as possible since we had a long march ahead of us.
This is our last breakfast in Kyoto, there was a sole (fish), rice and a strange broody kind of tofu (I think... :|). Despite its questionable nature, I really liked it and ate it without question :-D (it's the little cup in the middle of the picture).

Here it is a close up look at the mysterious food. There was some soft leaves and a little hill of wasabi on top of the tofu.

After breakfast we cleaned up the mess in our room, made sure we hadn't forgotten anything, and went to the lobby for Check Out.
Another surprise: Our bags was there!!!!!!!!!!! And they were covered in stickers and sheets of a delivery agency: the KuroNekoYamato (their logo is so cute^^!). Japanese use a lot of visual comunication: once we even saw a sign picturing a chopped off finger to indicate a dangerous sharp edge... °_°,
Here's logo, isn't it sweetest? A momma-cat that's "delivering" a kitten. We saw a lot of their advertisements on the streets and they also had a bunch of commercials on TV, too.

While thanking the Fox god, we gladly took our bags and rejoicedin the fact that we finally had our luggage back!!! After check-out we said our good-byes and hopped over to the train station. It was time to take the Shinkansen!!
While being the faamous high-speed japanese train, Shinkansen is also very comfortable. At the station everything was so clean and orderly, the only airhead was me since I almost lost the tickets.  When I realized it my folly, I ran back to find them and a very kind man (a ticket-checker, I guess) had already found them and thankfully gave them back... The train station was huge! On the ground there were even markings of the exact place where the train door was going to be.
The Shinkansen station in Kyoto, the girl in the center of the picture seems to say: "you're going to miss the train!"

The trip lasted less than two of hours. In each car there was an LCD screen showing the news, the weather forecasts and the following stops. Even though it was all in Japanese I managed to understand some of it ^^. Once in Tokyo we had to find the hotel, so we followed the instructions we found on the internet: we moved toward OchaNoMizu station. The way was quite easy to find; but even so, a man stopped by us to offer directions while we were studing the map. The hotel was quite close, too, so in little time we checking-i.n
The Ryokan was on the top of one of the many little hills of the Tokyo zone.
In the following picture you can see the height of the location of the hotel; the bathing woman drawn on the left is the insigna of the  HOTEL EDOYA (the name of the Ryokan is also written in kanji on the side of the building).

In our room we found a couch, not really Japanese, but the rest was in the Japanese style. The toilet was a little worse than the one in Kyoto, this one wasn't the space-toilet and I was rather sad about that. The futon was olso a bit strange and the pillow was somewhat grainy. Even so, we were in Tokyo, so I didn't complain!!!
Here are our 3 futons. Mine was the red one^^

Looking from the window you can see the signboard and the street, We were finally in Tokyo, but it was time to take some rest since this time we had the bags. ^^
Here it's a picture taken from the window; the electric cables are very close to the buildings. °_°

Finally we were able to take a refreshing shower and wear something clean. But sadly, for today that's all! I'm waiting for you at the next chapter!
Bye!!
.::Yuki_Sakuma::.

Read more about our Travel to Japan

how-much does a trip to japan cost? | Kyoto | Japanese dinner | Japan Temple: Fushimi Inari Taisha | Japan Temple: Kiyomizudera | Japan travel in Kyoto | visiting Akihabara | Shibuya and Shinjuku | Ginza AppleStore | Tokyo Tower | Asakusa Sensoji Temple | Japanese Garden: Rikugien | Mandarake Manga store