Our trip started out on a dreary Wednesday in Toronto, foggy, rainy, even snowy. We were more than happy to leave all of that behind.
Our flight was long but uneventful. The funniest part of the day was watching the poor woman two rows ahead of us struggle with her tray table. She appeared to be trying to suspend a furoshiki (Japanese wrapping cloth) from the table, perhaps to put her valuables in? In any case, she managed to rip the clasp for the table right out of the seatback and thus her table would not stay up. The cabin crew fought back laughter as they first tried to duct tape the table up, but ended up using a seatbelt extender to literally buckle it to the seat in front of her.
We arrived in Tokyo and took our obligatory first photo in front of the "Welcome to Japan" wall at Narita... how many of you have a similar photo? I bet lots of you do from at least one of your trips!
We took the Narita Express train from Narita to Shinagawa Station (one stop past Tokyo Station), took just under an hour and was "free" with our JR Rail Pass. Dad fell asleep but I was too excited to sleep at that point, even though the sun went down halfway into the ride so I couldn't even see out the window.
Got a little lost looking for our hotel but check-in was easy and we got settled in right away. They had Shiseido shampoo/conditioner/body wash in the bathroom - I think this is one of the first times in history that I've ever used the in-house toiletries instead of my own! I also loved that all the hotels had a hot water pot in every room with complimentary ocha (green tea).


The first stop on our Tokyo tour was the Meiji Jingu Shrine in the Shibuya area. It is dedicated to Emperor Meiji, the great grandfather of the current Emperor Akihito. It is one of the largest Shinto shrines in Japan and the largest in the Tokyo area. While I was there I picked up an Omikuji (poem-drawing) composed by Empress Shoken, who was said to have written over 30, 000 of them in her time.
We made a brief stop at the main gates of the Imperial Palace, which is surrounded by a huge moat. The tour would normally take us through the Palace's East Gardens, which is the only part of the compound that is open to the public, but it is closed on Mondays and Fridays.
From there we went to Asakusa to see the famed Kannon Temple. This temple is the oldest Buddhist temple in Tokyo and is set in the heart of the old Geisha district. There is also lots of good shopping in the surrounding areas, including the Nakamise Shopping Arcade which is the long row of shops that leads up to the front steps of the temple itself. This is where we were when the earthquake hit, as you might have read in some of my earlier posts.

The streets were lined with hundreds of shops selling everything you can imagine, like this little store that only sold senbei (Japanese rice crackers). It smelled amazing.
We watched this guy make ramen noodles for a good 25 minutes, it was incredible. He had such an attention to detail, he would put Paula Deen to shame. Made us hungry so of course we had to go find somewhere to eat lunch after that. Lots of restaurants will advertise on the door whether they have English menus available, to save us from having to go inside and ask, "Ego wakarimasu ka?" (informal way of asking "Do you understand English?"). We ended up picking the one that had the best looking display in the window, and it tasted even better than it looked.
I know I'm going backwards by starting at the beginning but my journey tells the story about how Japan changed me. I really value every detail of my trip, and I hope that through my stories and photos that you can feel a little bit of that magic too.
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