Tokoy

Fred and I went to Tokyo last Saturday to meet one of our people who had flown in the day before, so took it as a bit of an opportunity to have a bit of a quick look round.
We took the Shinkansen which is a bit expensive but it’s faster than the regular train, I’ll try the slower one sometime though it’s less than half the price of the bullet train.
Trip was pretty uneventful, nice and smooth and like clock work we arrived at Tokyo central about 50minuets later, trains run on time over here and I get the impression that it would something really unusual for a train not to leave on time or arrive on time. Anyway arrived in Tokyo and met Leo in the station which is in easy walking distance of area of Tokyo called Ginza, this apparently means Silver Mint. It’s the high end fashion section of the city with lots of high end shops and restaurants, which obviously I wasn’t there to shop being a Yorkshirman and all that, we did go for a walk through it though.
It’s also close to the Imperial Palace so we decided to give that a look, it was about dinner time so we decided to have something to eat and get a drink before we went.
First restaurant we got to was Italian, don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before but it seems to me that the Japanese really love Italian food, there’s a heck of a lot of them here.
Food was good though, a bit of a tip for anyone going to Japan food in restaurants is usually a lot cheaper at dinner time, they all have lunch menus and the same food at night can be twice the price if not more.
So off we go to the Imperial Palace, didn’t realize until we got there that we couldn't’t go in they do tours apparently but not when we were there so we just walked round the out side the wall and the moat and took a couple of photos..
Defiantly worth a look especially as we were so close pity about missing the tour, there’s guards outside in little pillar boxes just like at Buckingham Palace, no one actually lives inside now a days though, like I say pity we couldn't’t’ get in the grounds outside were nice though and well kept
That was about it for the Palace especially as it was red hot and humid and we’d done enough walking around and decided to have a look around the Ginza district, so of we went.
Could tell as soon as we got to the shopping are that every thing was expensive most of the shops didn’t even have prices in the window, that’s always an indication if you have to worry about the price don’t come in.

We walked a long way, right down to the river lot more of the same lots of shopping didn't really have much to to do any exploring so this posting will be mostly photos, did see a pretty neet river cruise boat though would be nice to go on when i have more time.

It was pretty interesting though shame we did not have much time this trip, will definitely have to do it again when i have more time. I was going out Saturday night and we were going to a birthday party tomorrow, it was Megumis boyfriends birthday a guy from Canada called Mike who i had never met before, but there was food and booze to be had after all.

Took a few photos while we were looking round the shops, like i say did not have alot of time so will take a better look next time.

Have also been trying to learn a bit more Japanese, it can't be that hard can it even kids speak it, saw a guy taking his dog for a walk while we were in Tokyo he sopped at the side of the road said something to the dog and it sat down, see what i mean even dogs understand Japanese so there must be some hope for me learning a bit more.

We decided to walk down to the rive much more of the same lots of shops, shame we did not have more time to explore, but maybe next time. Did see a pretty neat river cruise boat though, will have to give this a go sometime. There were some really nice scooters as well, took a photo of one but missed some of the better one which had great paint jobs and little coloured LED's all over them.

Took the bus back to the station as you can see form the photo of Fred and Leo, had to get the Shinkansen back to Utsunomiay as i was going out later.