After posting here on Sunday morning I left Mike to sleep more and ventured out to wander our neighborhood in search of morning hot beverages and food. The neighborhood is one of the oldest in Tokyo, and also very small and quiet, at least compared to the Tokyo we saw last time and you always see in movies.

I found a cafe and managed to order tea and some food, though it was a bit difficult seeing as I speak no Japanese and the woman at the counter spoke no english.

I really enjoyed wandering about. My favorite part of traveling is wandering aimlessly through places I don’t know. Having a sore ankle has made that difficult, but I’m still trying.

After breakfast I brought coffee and food to Mike and then we set out to explore the Tsukiji Market. According to our guidebook they have a big fish market, and then next to it is the “external” market with other goods. There was very little open when we got there, probably because it was Sunday. We wandered though, exploring the area and came upon this Shinto Shrine. It was difficult to understand what was going on because there was no english on the signs, but it was fascinating to watch everyone go about the rituals of hand washing, bell ringing, coin tossing, and I assume, praying.

After that long, arduous experience in first class travel we arrived in Japan around 6pm and made it to our hotel by 8pm. We both managed to not sleep very much on the plane, probably out of excitement over our cool little travel pods. Playing with the seat was way more interesting than sleeping…

Though pretty exhausted we had a date in Shinjuku to make it to. We met up with my dear friend from London days, Taiju. He brought us to an excellent restaurant that specialized in different forms of tofu. They had just closed, but he convinced them to stay open for us by telling them that these two Americans have come specially to try their food. Smooth.

I really would have liked to spend more time with Taiju, but we had to get home before the trains closed (can you believe the trains stop at midnight in Tokyo?) and we were getting pretty sleepy.

This morning I woke up at a respectable 7am. Here`s the view from our room.

Today we will try to explore a bit; I`m walking on a sprained ankle, so I don`t know how far we`ll make it. Our hotel has free bikes, I`m thinking one of those might extend my range.

This evening we meet up with Andi!