Super Hotel Chibaekimae

... a word. A lady came out of a little travel information office, the nija guy immediately went over
and spoke to her, she then told me that my pick-up is on the way, it takes 30-minutes to get here, I have no choice but to wait and I should wait inside the room instead outside.

So I went in the glass waiting room, couple of guys passed the door, round 10:25pm, a 60ish
man appeared outside the automatic sliding door, his stripe pants and loose ...

... to see is off this line. Will let the photos tell you where we we ended up, suffice to say we walked for miles and miles ( blisters on blisters ) at the end of most days. Japaneses people are incredibly mannerly, just getting used to the fact that we need to bow all the time - in shops, restaurants, lifts etc. Another thing we learned is not to tip after meals, we left money on the table the first night and the manager and waitress ran out ...

... Peninsula with classic afternoon tea in the lobby. Knowing that everything is automatic, it is no wonder that the view was not the best part of my room...the toilet was!!! The hotel had the fully mechanized toilet. The lid lifted automatically when you entered the water closet. A press of a button raised the seat if you didn't intend on sitting. If you do sit, the seat is heated. I guess that helps your circulation. It certainly ...

... I had Udon - yum) and some oolong iced tea. There's sumo wrestling on TV (next to a TV covering the democratic primaries in the US, but whatever -- I'm soaking up the Japan). The sumo wrestling is reminding me of all the rich culture of Japan that I'd love to explore some day (because... samurai!!)... But unfortunately, we have to run off here. Our flight to Singapore boards in 10 minutes! Time flies when you're having fun. Almost there... ~amy

Second day in Tokyo... and last full day. Since we didn't get back until 6am this morning... we all woke up pretty late. That is, except for Cat, who stayed up until 7:30am just so that she wouldn't miss out on picking up the hotel-included breakfast... which she stocked up on and brought back to the rooms for us. I personally woke up around 12noon. Since we had less time today, we were in a bit more of a rush. We planned it out so that we would see: Ueno and Asakusa (two "temply ...

... hesitation, I responded in Japanese. Hmmm...I felt like I was home again! "Yay! I'm back as I had promised myself." It seemed like I had been waiting all year to make this trip back to Tokyo and I was excited that it had finally arrived to that day! But soon my excitement died when at the airport I was not able to withdraw any cash. No matter which ATM machine I tried, my withdrawal request just kept being denied. To make things worse, I couldn't even use my ...

... try it. But we kinda forgot what buttons on the machine meant what, so it ended up being another round of "Pick-a-button, and hope for the best!"... Amy and I fared well, with some kind of chicken/tofu broth... Dan was unintentionaly brave as he got a very basic broth, and a side bowl of yeast!! It looked pretty nasty, but he said it was pretty good. Welcome to the crazy food club, Dan, welcome to the club!!

... and the views of the mountains and beaches are superb. Our first destination is Mount Nokogiri, which said to host the largest stone figure of Buddha statue in Japan. (gross height 31 metres). Mt. Nokogiri-yama is 330 meters above sea level. It was known for Boshu-seki stone from the 14th to the 18th century, and the sites of the quarries left marks like the edge of a saw, or Nokogiri, on the face of the mountain, from which the name derives. Before we could reach the top ...

Another late start, suprise suprise!!!! and we've hit the centre of Tokyo today! It took us like 45mins to get into the centre, or the main area of Tokyo called Shinjuku, which most people would associate with Tokyo! ie... the movies etc etc Right, first stop was the trading card shop in Ryogoku, **** yeah! There is only one in Adelaide and this was a megastore, complete with a computer search engine for single cards, packs and boxes - as you would get in a library. Okay, so I spent 3000 ...

Since today is Marina's last full day in Japan we did some light sightseeing. I am going to miss her once she leaves and we have no idea when we will be able to meet up again. Today, I just wanted to spend some time with her. We spend the day walking around the Imperial Palace. It was a nice way to spend some time together. Basically you can only visit the outside garden of the Imperial Palace. From what I understand the inner parts of the Garden are only opened ...