From Eggrolls to Sushi Rolls

So we made it to Tokyo safe and sound.  We had a fabulous flight on Singapore Airlines.  Smooth as silk.  And with 290 movies and 460 television shows to choose from, plus two full meals and a snack, there was plenty to do and the flight never seemed like it was dragging on and on.  We arrived here at 6:20 p.m. local time on Friday and two hours later arrived at our hotel.  After a good night's rest courtesy of Lunesta, we were ready to hit the ground running.

We had a guided tour Saturday morning.  We were first taken to the grounds of the Imperial Palace where the emperor of Japan and his family live.  You couldn't see the palace, but there was a very pretty bridge called the Nijubashi Bridge.  That white building in the center of the photo way in the distance?  It's one of the guard houses that guards the actual palace.  So much for our brush with Japanese royalty.  

From there we were off to the Senso-Ji Temple, the most famous Buddhist temple in Japan.  As the guide was detailing the ritual purification process required for entry to the temple, I think we all started to get a little uncomfortable.  Awkward situation, party of four!  Fortunately, when we got to the temple complex, our guide just told us that we had an hour to look around and where to meet back and then she cut us loose to explore on our own.  After taking a couple of pictures, we made our way to the Nakamise shopping street and spent our time wading through the sea of humanity that apparently accompanies any shopping area on a Saturday in Tokyo.  

    Senso-Ji Temple

    Pagoda at Senso-Ji.

    Nakamise shopping street.  Wall-to-wall people.  And this isn't even the most crowded shopping area we were in today!

Sooooo, after getting up-close-and-personal with some new friends in Tokyo, we were off to the Ginza district, a super-duper high-end shopping district (read  Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Bulgari, etc.) where we were left to explore.  Not exactly in our shopping budgets, we bagged Ginza quickly and headed off via the subway to the Harajuku district where we spent the next six hours in the hugest, most tightly-packed group of shoppers I've ever seen in my life.  For real.  Take a look....

I don't know if you can tell from this picture, but the people down this street are packed tighter than sardines in a can and the crowd just fills the street from end to end.  Harajuku makes the crowds in China look sparse!  There are 13 million residents of Tokyo, and we shopped with every last one of them yesterday.  In Harajuku.  I'm not even kidding.

Despite the overwhelming amount of people and being jostled and pushed and bumped and being unable to even move sometimes, we had an absolute blast.  I'll write more about Harajuku this evening and share some more pictures.  Suffice it to say for now that it was fun, funky and fabulous!  

We're heading out in just a few minutes to see Mt. Fuji and will be spending the night tonight in Hakone before moving on to Kyoto tomorrow.  If I have wi-fi in our Hakone hotel, I will post more tonight about our adventures in Tokyo.  I've got a few stored up for you.