Travel Japan

Day one, Tokyo. We had reserved a day guide (tokyofreeguide.com) which is a free tour guided by a Tokyo resident but speaking in your own native tongue. You are only responsible for the guide's meals and any admission fees. This is a terrific service, free since the guides are benefitting too: they are seeking to better their language skills in a foreign language. If you reserve the guide for your first day, you can then become acquainted with the subway system which can be daunting for many travelers.

Our first stop was at the Imperial Palace and Gardens. The palace is only open to the public on New Year's Day, once a year. But there are some nice places to have a photo taken and then walk around the gardens. The garden is vast, so we picked a section and walked that only.

Our guide then took us to the Imperial Hotel for a tea ceremony. The cost was approximately 30 yen for the three of us (guide included).

Next we went to the Ginza, mainly just to see it and walk about. We did visit the Sony building and see the new products. (I was hoping for a new, cheap Sony digital voice recorder, but no luck.)

We then had lunch at a buffet style Japanese restaurant, which our guide said was frequented mainly by women (our guide was a young professional woman). This was important as women in Japan tend to eat healthy, low calorie meals, and as traditional Japanese cuisine is low cal we had a nice traditional meal.

After lunch we took the subway to the Asakusa district to see the Kannon, or Senoji Temple. In front of the temple are souvenir shops where you can purchase Yakusa (Japanese type robes) and various shirts, ties, candies, and knickknacks.

We finished our tour at the Tokyo City View from Roppongi station. On top of the building is a closed in 360 degree viewing area and then, if the weather was good—it was—you can go on top of the building itself for an open air view. The Mori Museum is also in the same building so we then visited that collection of very modern, cutting edge art. Not to my taste, but some might say otherwise (see my comments on the 21^st Century Museum in Kyoto).

Our guide left us to our own devices and we somehow made our way home via the subway without any major or minor mishap.