Flying there

11 hours and 25 minutes

The day before the first full day in Tokyo
Began our stay with a Hotel or Limousine Bus into the centre from Narita Airport.  Past outskirts that look like all city outskirts.  Weaving through the traffic along the expressways.  It takes about an hour to get there.  Greeted by people who knew we would be there and when.  Everyone has had a bad night and wants to compare notes about it.  Head out and about to find somewhere to eat after figuring out the shower/bathroom.  And free Internet access.  Find a pub that seems to do a Japanese style Tapas and lovely local beer.  Some of this food has a mixed reception among the group. But the chips with rosemary and other herbs go down well.  There is too much tiredness around for too much adventure.

3rd August The first full day in Tokyo
Began the day in by waking up with a few minutes to get breakfast.  Having slept through the 8 o’clock alarm having not really slept between 4 and 6 and then plunging into a really deep sleep and dreaming of chasing a black and white striped bee round the room. 
There’s the Herald Tribune outside the door in a plastic bag – the world’s news in just 24 pages.  A bridge has collapsed in Minneapolis and the picture of it buckled and cracked fills the front page.

Breakfast is in the pink hotel breakfast room with elderly travellers from the US and Britain having their pictures taken with the waiters and waitresses.  It’s a buffet and the staff smile tolerantly at the just-in-timers.  Ten to ten.

Began the day out by walking the short distance to Tokyo Station in the humidity and heat of the day to confront the ticket office and baffling array of places and lines and trains and bustle and everyone else knowing what they were doing.  True to form so far, we were immediately, effortlessly helped by a smiling person to buy tickets for the Yamamote Line to Shimbashi –where we were going to walk to the river to go to Asakusa by ferry. Three tickets plus one –this seems to be the way of it here. It cost 160 Yen for each of us. The Yamamote is an overhead line that trundles in a circle round the main districts of the city centre at about the height of the DLR.  So it’s an excellent way of seeing things and getting places.

First impressions:
Cool air-conditioned trains
Helpful people
Bustle and hustle without noise
Cars that seem to make no sound and never jump the lights
Eight lane highways cutting through everything
Humidity
Scent in the air
Bikes on the pavement. Legally.
Trains overhead and under your feet.
Power lines dangling overhead
Sudden old buildings
Buildings on top of buildings

Walking from Shimbashi we found ourselves off the tourist trail and getting rapidly more lost. Cut through some roadworks out and under the expressway into the Hama Riku Teien – gardens by the Samuda River.

Here we had tea in the traditional way in the floating teahouse in the middle of the ornamental pond in the Hama Riku Teien.  You take off your shoes and wait on the mat and a woman brings you a bowl of green tea (hot or cold) with a sweet next to it.  She kneels in front of each of you in turn and bows. You bow in return.  Turn the bowl and drink it in three sips.  I have to drink Jack’s when she’s not looking.  You then eat a sweet covered in a sugary jelly.  I have to eat Alice’s when the waitress is not looking.

Outside the only sound is of the trees rustling in the wind and the fish jumping in the pond.  The teahouse is so still.  Some equally awestruck Korean tourists take our picture when we ask.  I photograph the absence of people through the window with nothing disturbing the moment.  And we are in the middle of Tokyo.

The riverboat leaves from the corner of the park.  We travel up under the 14 bridges.  Buy drinks on the boat.  An elderly traveller in front shows his granddaughter some of the sights of Tokyo on the way up, tells hers stories all along the way.

Off the boat and in search of somewhere to eat.  The jet lag is kicking in weirdly with all of us ravenous and in need of something familiar. Just as well we find the neon lit Miami Italian place with pizzas and pasta and apple juice and iced water.  And feel like we are coping and adjusting. 

Then up the street that leads to the Senso Ji shrine.  Full of tourist capturing shops.  And there are sweets and fans and purses to buy.  But it’s all so beautifully done and at the end is the fantastic ensemble of buildings at the Senso Ji.  The pilgrims wafting incense towards themselves before visiting the shrine, throwing some money in the box.  The shrine is the home to a 7.5 cm gold figure of a goddess found miraculously in some fishing nets. 

The fishermen are celebrated at Asakusa shrine next door.  Jack and I take a closer look.  A priest approaches the shrine and claps twice in prayer.  The trees rustle back.  Cut paper prayers and wishes swing in the breeze.

Home on a long walk through to Ueno Station. Long because the City Map I have misses out some of the Asakusa Dori.  The station is the same sort of size as Tokyo Station and we manage to figure out the machine ourselves.  We roll slowly back along the Yamamote line. 

Glimpses of:
Neon
Other trains
Late workers coming home
Sounds of Mrs Mills organ phrases at all the stops on the line

From the window of the train

Walk back to the Hotel and start to feel drowsy but keep the illusion of being awake going long enough for a normal bedtime.  Manage a late bite in the restaurant downstairs.  Some comfort food again.