About a month ago I bought used Japan Eyewitness Travel Guidebook in Edina library for $1 and decided to take a plunge to travel to Asia. Japan seemed to be a good starting point. I went to Japan for Thanksgiving to avoid eating too much turkey :) Obviously, I had very little idea what to expect...
The flight to Tokyo was not bad overall - it helped that I had an exit row seat:). Delta has no personal entertainment systems (yet) on 747-400 (I knew it before going), so I spent most of the time reading guidebooks I had with me. Tokyo airport was clean, efficient and well-organized. They had more serious customs than anywhere I had been. An officer asked if I had swords with me and then checked my luggage to make sure that I didn't have them.
I took a limousine bus from the airport to the area where I stayed (Tokyo Dome - Suidobashi station). The bus took one hour and half; a train would've been faster, but I didn't want to experiment on the first day. It was supposed to be an easy five-minute walk to my hotel, but I got lost even though I had a detailed map of the neighborhood! The hotel where I stayed (Niwa) was a business hotel, brand new, with a decent size room. After checking in I decided to talk a stroll to see what's around. Actually I walked all the way to Tokyo Station and back. The next morning I went around the central Tokyo.
I finished my day in Ginza.
The flight to Tokyo was not bad overall - it helped that I had an exit row seat:). Delta has no personal entertainment systems (yet) on 747-400 (I knew it before going), so I spent most of the time reading guidebooks I had with me. Tokyo airport was clean, efficient and well-organized. They had more serious customs than anywhere I had been. An officer asked if I had swords with me and then checked my luggage to make sure that I didn't have them.
I took a limousine bus from the airport to the area where I stayed (Tokyo Dome - Suidobashi station). The bus took one hour and half; a train would've been faster, but I didn't want to experiment on the first day. It was supposed to be an easy five-minute walk to my hotel, but I got lost even though I had a detailed map of the neighborhood! The hotel where I stayed (Niwa) was a business hotel, brand new, with a decent size room. After checking in I decided to talk a stroll to see what's around. Actually I walked all the way to Tokyo Station and back. The next morning I went around the central Tokyo.
I started from Yasukuni shrine - shrine of the Peace for the Nation. The remains of 2.5 million war dead (since the Meiji Restaration - 1868) were enshrined there. My next stop was Yushukan museum - while troubling for some, it is recommended if you want to understand Japan and its history. Here are a couple of pictures from the museum.
West nations encroaching on Asia (Yushukan)
Human suicide torpedo (kaiten) in Yushukan.
From Yasukuni I went through Kitanomaru Park to the Imperial Palace East Garden. The most famous landmark is Nihonbashi, a bridge east of the Palace.
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