Day 2

So today was the day we became Japanese Tourists in Japan, with the camera batteries fully charged, Sunglasses packed and guide map in hand!! The most impressive thing about Japan, is that everything is organised to the final detail, on time and ever so friendly. So our tour bus was due to pick us up at 08:05, and at 08:03 it arrived, and we jumped on board the big yellow bus. We decided to opt for the full day tour, basically a good way of ensuring we sleep well tonight!! The tour was broken down into 6 attractions.

1. Mehji Shrine,
     Unbeknown to us, we actually visited this yesterday but fortunately our tour leader knew a lot more about this place than I did. Effectively this is a Shindo Shrine, which tend to be the biggest religion in Japan, although when I saw religion it is more of a superstition, effectively you visit a Shindo Shrine when something good happens, marriage, christening etc and a buddhist temple for a funeral. We went up to the shrine having had our soul cleansed (by walking through a gate) and made our wish!!
2. East Garden of the Emperor Palace
     Wow this was impressive, what a huge area of land for a 77 year old man, here we learnt about the monarchy in Japan, but unfortunately we were not allowed into the palace, one assumes that is because I am not a Prince. However the Emperor was kind enough to let us walkthrough a small part of his 177 acre garden. It was perfect, they employ 2,000 people for the emperor just to look after the gardens and house!!
3. Asakusa Shrine
     So this was similar to the shrine this morning but for buddha and a lot bigger, by this point both Dad and I where struggling with the heat, so we hit the souvenir shop which had aircon, and pretended to browse!! Rather comical they had a fortune telling machine, where you could keep putting money in until you got the fortune you wanted!.
4. Lunch at the top of a sky scraper, over looking Tokyo Bay.
5. A Tokyo Bay cruise, A rather flash boat awaited us and then subsequently took us up the dock, under the rainbow bridge, turned round and came back. This was a fantastic way to take in the sheer size and fantastic architecture in Japan.
6. Oadabia, this is a now a complete Island dedicated to amusement. Initially was built buy the emperor to store all of his weaponary should Japan ever come under attack, now it is full of amusements, shopping centres, theme parks, theme parks within shopping centres, TV stations you name it, anything to do with entertainment is on there.

After a return to the hotel, we have done some final training after a trip to the local convenience store (see below) and we have booked our selves in for a "Tea Ceremony" tomorrow!

Unfortunately we where reminded today of just how large Mount Fuji is, the highest building we saw today was the new Tokyo Tower at 662m, so Fuji is nearly 6 times that height, oh well only a day to go until we crack on!!!! Time for bed....