Day trip to Hokkaido

We caught the bullet train bright and early for our day trip to the island of Hokkaido. It is right in the north of Japan and the main city is Sapporo, famous for holding the winter Olympics.
We weren't going that far though, just under the tunnel from the main island to a city called Hakodate.
It took three and a half hours door to door, including a change of trains. We were very surprised to see that out of the whole of our bullet train, we were the only people on the platform to Hakodate, and everyone else changed to the Sapporo platform. Was there something we didn't know?
Actually, I think that maybe there was something they didn't know, because it was really nice.

Cold, but we have bought new scarves for the weather.
It is a seaside port, with a mountain and cable car which wasn't working today, probably because it was too windy.
There was lots to see and it was all signposted in English so we found nice gardens but under a lot of snow, churches, coffee stops and lots of warm shops.

I photobombed an interesting snow cat, and we found a frozen beer fountain, but didn't get to taste today.

Tokyo to Sendai by Bullet train

Today we caught the bullet train, known in Japan as the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Sendai. Sendai is 186 miles north of Tokyo, and it took less than 90 minutes to get there, although the train went slowly through the almost never-ending suburbs of Tokyo before picking up speed.

The trains are famously on time  right to the second  and ours set off at 11.26am exactly. We got there early to watch the trains going through the station and they all left as planned.
The guard at the back of the train carefully checks his watch and the second that it ticks over he waves his hand, and off it goes.
The trains arrive about every six minutes at each platform, so it would be a disaster if one was late and knocked the whole lot out of sequence.

Koishikawa Korakuen Gardens, Tokyo

We visited the Koishikawa Korakuen Gardens this morning  and they were absolutely beautiful. It was a freezing cold day, and almost nothing was in flower  but the structure and layout of the garden meant that it did not matter at all.

We also went to the Yasukuni Shrine garden and Darren took a lovely photo of a huge koi carp with the reflection of an overhanging tree.

Museums and sightseeing

Today we started off with another run along the river, had a little break and then went straight into tourist mode.
We walked to the Hokusai museum to find out about the famous screen print painter who lived in the area.

Really interesting, then onto the Sumo wrestling museum that was just a few streets away. The writing outside was all in Japanese and we couldn't work out how to get inside, but we took a photo by the entrance, so I suppose that was a reasonable effort.

I don't think that I would have made a very good wrestler. Next and just around another corner was the huge Edo Tokyo museum. We went inside up a very long escalator that actually flattened out part way along and then went up again.
It is a major museum explaining the history of Tokyo and all about the Samurai warriors, and it is has life size buildings, people and street scenes.
It was busy but we found a sign saying free English guided tours.  We got our own private guide who was young and took his role very seriously. He was very knowledgeable and delivered all of the facts in a robotic kind of way, but we enjoyed it and learned loads.

We took this picture after he had left us.
We then set off to the busiest zebra crossing in the world where we added to the numbers by crossing it three or four times just to take it in.

The day then goes a little bit wrong because we then spend 40 minutes in a huge park trying to find a famous shrine. I am in charge of this visit and I am sure that maps in the park kept turning upside down because we walked in a huge circle and eventually got back to our entrance gates rather than the opposite end. Perhaps it wouldn't have been very good anyway.
Next we just enjoyed looking at the busy streets in the dark. We were supposed to be going to see the last night of illuminations but didn't find those either.

We finished off by catching our underground train from the busiest station in the world. Darren was in charge of the directions for this bit and it went very well.
Whew. A long busy day. Yesterday, we walked 33,000 steps and today 28,000 so quite tired now.

Getting the hang of Tokyo

We are staying in a nice, and compact hotel on the outskirts of Tokyo. We are right next to the Sumida River and there are excellent running routes in both directions and both sides of the river. It is good to be running in the colder weather and fantastic not to finish a run without my face being purple and  feeling completely exhausted.

We have also found out that we can buy everything that we need from one shop, the Familymart. These little convenience stores are on every corner and welcome us in.
You can buy every meal there, and there is a microwave to heat things up. The staff are all really friendly and there is a little area to eat, usually by the window.
We have tried most things and it takes all of the problems of finding food away. We are going to get more adventurous, and all of the restaurants have photos of their meals on the menu, but it is a bit of a worry.

Views from our hotels in Japan

Yesterday we spent the day and evening flying from Penang to Tokyo. There was quite a long layover in Kuala Lumpur and we didn't land at Haneda airport until about 11pm, and we didn't reach our airport hotel until after midnight.
This morning I opened the curtains and was shocked to clearly see Mount Fuji in the distance.

I have zoomed it in a lot, and by the time I took the photo the view was becoming hazy, twenty minutes later it couldn't be seen at all. What an amazing welcome to Japan.
We bought breakfast from the Minimart across the road and then caught the subway to our hotel in the Asakusa district of Tokyo. Our room is tiny but functional as long as we both don't stand up at the same time. It has a window that we cannot see out of, so imagine our surprise when going up on to the roof terrace and seeing this view.

So far so good, and we also went to the nearby Senso-ji shrine. It was a beautiful place, really busy and full of girls dressed in traditional costumes.