We landed late afternoon on Friday, Tokyo time. Bus and cab to the hotel took 1 hour 15 minutes. Toshi, our OAT Tour Leader, met us in the hotel lobby and gave us the instructions we needed to assemble with our group the next morning and some local restaurants should we feel the need to eat. After sort of settling into our room, we decided that soba noodles in a quaint restaurant would be the way to start our trip. Three blocks walk to the left from our hotel brought us to a pre war wooden building nestled among the high rises of the area. They stopped us as we came in the door and presented us with the two English menus so we could figure out what we were ordering. Actually the English descriptions still left us wondering. Carol had her “vegetarian notice” written by a hotel desk clerk and I was able to discern a hot soba noodle in fish broth with chicken as a likely choice. It was wonderful and we soon crashed in our beds and slept, only to be awakened by jet lag and the sound of street repairs that continued until sunrise. Welcome to a very large city.
We began our tour walking from the hotel to a subway to Tokyo National Museum located in Ueno Park and then walking through this very wonderful park to see shrines, azelia gardens in glorious bloom, and lunch in an all you can eat buffet that was very nice. A walk through an old pre war neighborhood introduced us to very compact living arrangements on streets too small for large cars. I cite pre war often as much of Tokyo was burned to the ground in the destruction of the end of WW II. Very little from that era is left.
We returned to the hotel to wait the arrival of Sara and her Japanese husband, mother-in-law and two children. Sara was a student of Carol’s who we saw off to Alaska to live with an aunt when she was 16. We next saw her in 2002 in San Diego and although there has been continous contact through email, Facebook and even snail mail we had not seen her in 12 years. We had a wonderful reunion, punctuated by the rambunctious behavior of a very over tired 3 year old boy. We parted with no idea of when we are likely to see each other again.
Sunday brought another day of touring. We traveled by subway, train, monorail, and local train to Kamkura, southeast of Tokyo on the coast. This is an area that thrives on local tourism and it was a festival weekend so we moved in throngs of people, mostly Japanese on weekend holiday. Although there were some reminders that is was Easter Sunday, they were minor and scattered. We were going to Shinto shrines and temples. Along the way we had lunch at 0467, one of the nicest restaurants we have been taken to by OAT in our travels. On our return to Tokyo we got off at Tokyo Station which is wonderfully restored and we continued on into the adjacent Tokyo Post Office called Kitte. There I made use of aJP (Japan Post) ATM to provide me sufficient yen to continue the trip. I had counted on getting local currency from ATMs only to learn that my card would work only at JP ATMs. After one more stop, I believe I am carrying sufficient cash to pay my way. We have already run into circumstances that require cash, not credit cards. We bought take out at the Kitte to bring back to the hotel. I got too much sushi which I enjoyed immensely. Carol found delightful veggies. We set up our dining area in the lobby only to find that this was an unwelcome activity. However we were permitted to complete our meal.
Our 3rd day started with a walk and subway ride to the fish market. We walked through aisles and aisles of wonders from the sea. We dodged a wide assortment of vehicles in the aisles transporting goods from vendor to buyer. Eventually Toshi, our tour leader, let us into a cramped restaurant past a long line of people waiting to get in where we were offered a sushi tasting. This was not to be considered lunch! Among the items offered was the finest tuna I can ever remember setting tooth to and I never remember being offered scallop as a sashimi, but there it was and it was delightful. We continued through the list shopping area on to the Ginza. Eventually we scattered. Five of us returned to the hotel for a break before combining on to a Kabuki performance we had tickets for in the evening. More on Kabuki later. I must stop and post this.