Archive for July, 2009
Rain when we woke up but dry when we left the hotel, that’s how it should be. It was already warm when we walked 2 Km to the Imperial palace gardens. This time they were open. We almost forgot but around 11 we noticed people started to look up, we then realized that today there was a solar eclipse that could be seen over most of Asia. I had looked up the path and times yesterday evening and it was clear that, weather permitting, we would be able to see a large chunk of the sun being covered by the moon. In the next hour we saw clouds clearing for a few moments at a time so we got a few short peeks at the sun. We walked from the gardens to Tokyo Tower, a Japanese version of the Eifel tower. There’s a viewing platform at the 150m level but unfortunately the clouds and humidity prevented us from seeing beyond the city limits. On a clear day we would be able to see Mount Fuji, 90 Km away. We returned to the hotel via Akihabara, the electronics district for some pictures of the shops at nighttime.
When I switched on the computer this morning my Forecastbar in Firefox indicated it was raining. Looking out the window we saw it was still dry. When we left the hotel after breakfast however it already started to drizzle. We walked to the Imperial Palace only to find it closed as yesterday was a holiday and so the park was open and closed on tuesday. Since the rain kept falling we made our way to Ginza, another of Tokyo’s shopping districts hoping we could at least stay dry in a few of the large shops there. The Sony showroom is an 8 storey building with 3D theatre and a display of Sony’s newest products. Next on the list, scheduled for Wednesday was Roppongi Hills. Yet another shopping district but with the added value of a second Hard Rock Cafe. We had dinner here and then took the subway back to the hotel. It was still raining. Let’s hope tommorow it will be better so we can visit the Imperial grounds.
After Sensoji Temple and the first geocache we found, we walked a little over 2 Km to Ueno Park. It’s nice to find such a big green area in a city as busy as Tokyo. It’s a bit like Central Park in New York where you can get away from noise and traffic. Inside the park is Toshogu Shrine, a 17th century shrine that’s approched along a path lined on both sides with many bronze lanterns.
We left the park and went to Ueno Station. The Hard Rock Cafe is located here and they have nice icecreams…. 
We took the subway back to the hotel earlier than expected. It seems we planned enough time to go see everything and we can take it easy without missing out on things we want to do and see. Now I just have to find some time to publish a few pictures in the gallery.
Close to the Sensoji Temple is a small park. Sumida Park houses GC1251V that is cleverly hidden but easy accessible. This was the first cache we found in Japan. I took the opportunity to drop one of the travelbugs I brought with me from the latest caches I “raided” in Belgium and just accross the border in the Netherlands.
A few months ago, when we were planning our vacation, I bought a Japanese map for my Garmin Colorado 300 and it already proved to be invaluable. Having a street map on paper is no big fun when you can’t read half the streetsigns 
Later during the day we found 3 caches in and near Ueno Park. Again I dropped a TB and picked up new ones. We don’t go out of our way to go caching as this is not the purpose of our trip but if any are closeby we’ll hunt them…..
We slept well and were awakened by alarm clock. After breakfast We took the subway to Sensoji Temple. We entered via Kaminari-mon (Thunder gate) and walked Nakamise-Dori, a covered street with many small stalls, to the temple. This is one of Tokyo’s top tourist attractions and so it was very busy on the temple grounds as well as inside.
We only planned to stay awake and active today as we wanted to adjust to the new timezone. We took the subway just around the corner to Akihabara. This is a district filled with electronics warehouses. This must be the worlds largest collection of laptops, cameras and electronic gadgets. Unfortunately this didn’t result in extraordinary prices. We walked on to Asakusabashi, the biggest wholesale district in Tokyo. Even though it was Sunday, almost all stores were open and salespeople were doing their best to entertain passers by to get them to come into their stores. We then walked back to the hotel and went to sleep by 20:30. It has been a long time since we had some good sleep and we wanted to be fit to start exploring Tokyo in the morning.
Sleeping was not easy. It never got dark and we didn’t feel like it was late. Nevertheless we managed a to sleep a short while. An hour before we touched down in Narita, Tokyo international airport we got breakfast and filled in the customs forms. We were warned that getting into Japan would take a long time but fortunately all went very smooth. It took just half an hour after we left the airplane until we were at the Japan Rail ticket counter. In that time we were fingerprinted, photographed and retrieved our suitcases.
The Narita Express took 58 minutes to get to Tokyo Station. Even though it was hot and humid we decided to walk 900 meters to our hotel. By noon we were there but we could not yet get into our room. We put our luggage in storage and went for a short walk to a nearby “Subway” for a sandwich and cold drink.
After months of preparation we finally left home for the airport. Our first flight on a Finnair Airbus 319 left a little later than scheduled but arrived in Helsinki, Finland on time. Or the first time the overhead monitors showed take off and landing from 2 onboard cameras, one pointing to the front and the other down.
Here we passed border control leaving the EU and boarded another Finnair airplane (this time an Airbus 340) for Tokyo. The time waiting was spend online as the airport has complete coverage of free wireless. We were pushed back from the gate with a 5 minute delay but since Helsinki airport is not very busy there are no waiting times for take off. The whole plane had personal video screens and once again we could choose to watch video from the two onboard cameras. After dinner, watching a movie and some video on my netbook it started to get a little darker outside. We were about 68° north over Russia slowly turning southeast when Japanese time was 3:30 in the morning (we still felt like 19:30 at that time) and we thought it would be a good time to get some sleep. After all we would arrive around 9 in the morning and have to stay awake the rest of the day.
