Big day in Tokyo

Sore feet was the first thing the children said about today but lets tell you about the cool things of our day.

Most of us got up around 6 - 7am which was quite reasonable so had a wee stroll around to find some place to breakfast.  After a stroll around and limited choices we decided on a real traditional breakfast of MacDonalds!  And some of us think it tasted the same, some of us said it was different.

We got taxi's to go to Tokyo Tower.  It was very very high (334m) and the lift was so smooth.  We got to see a 360 degree view.

"Wow..  I hope it holds...   high" was some of the thoughts expressed by the kids. There were even some windows on the floor so you could look straight down.

One of the views from Tokyo tower

We could make our own coins with our names on it and the Tokyo tower. 

We hopped onto the subway (not the eating kind) to go to the Imperial Palace.  The grounds were massive and saw for the first time grass but you are not allowed to walk on it.
The most interesting thing was the massive forts, and many discussions happened if we saw a turtle or not. The fish in the moat were huge and friendly.  We wondered what fish they were.  We also saw the policeman on the bicycle and lots of runners.
There were some people walking around in traditional Japanese costumes. 

It was then back onto the subway to go to Asakusa temple.  This was so crowded - we made a train holding onto hands and bags to weave our way through the masses of people who had joined us to see the temple.  This was our first look at a popular temple with big guards.  We were so tired trying to get pass the market to the main building we didn't go in but admired it from the view over  the tops of people's heads..

Asakusa temple - visiting with the masses.

We had lunch at Denny's but it was Denny's Japanese style.  We think the hot chips tasted the same though.  After a feed we went back onto the subway.  We are all becoming experts at buying our tickets from vending machines and going through ticket gates and most importantly sticking as a group when getting on and off trains and making sure we have everyone!

Mastering the vending machines to get our tickets.

Matt being our safety guard to make sure we stay behind the safety line at the station.

 Ueno zoo was our next stop and this was after a lovely walk through Ueno Park.  The trees provided us shelter so it was quite pleasant.  It was a mix of sunny and overcast and temperature was around 23 degrees so nice for us without being too hot.  Some blisters and sore legs are starting to make themselves known though.

We saw ... polar bears, brown bears, monkeys of all sorts, gorillas, tigers, lions,  two HUGE elephants, otters, seals, bats, lots of different birds like the tucan and of course PANDAS!!!!!! Pandas are very cool.  We also saw a Dhole which looked like a cross between a dog and a fox. Boys were very interested in the Dhole.
We ran out of time to see the other half of the zoo but were getting tired so happy to hop back on train to go back to hotel.

The very cool panda

Ms Spencer with her new boyfriend.

Aaron with his new friends.

 So just when we thought things couldn't get any more exciting we went hunting for somewhere to eat and thought we might just pop into the aquarium that was in the hotel (yes in the hotel - outrageous!)
We meandered around as the fish, sharks, mantra rays and lots of other very awesome sea life swam around and above us.  We made our way to an arena with a pool in the middle and sat down, thinking this was a huge swimming pool.  Us oldies and more experienced ones plodded ourselves at the back and the young ones took the front row right up by the huge pool.  The children became instantly suspicious when asked by staff to go get a rain jacket.  Of course the children did and had an absolute wonderful time getting showered in water by performing dolphins and the adults had an absolute wonderful time watching the children get soaked by the dancing dolphins!

Even though it was 8.30 at night and we hadn't had tea we weren't really hungry, but knew we had to eat so went to a food court (yes again in the hotel building - this hotel has EVERYTHING) where we had to master yet again more vending machines to pay and order for food.  We couldn't work it out so went and asked.  Luckily we found some people who were not Japanese and spoke English and they had already worked out how to do it.  By then we were actually hungry so peace reigned again once we got a meals.  We knew our meals were ready because we got given a wee box that beeped at you to let you know to go get your meal.  So through out your dinning experience you were constantly beeped at!

Off to bed at a bit more reasonable hour tonight - around 9.30.   All looking forward to tomorrow - off on the Skinkansen (bullet train) which will whip us to Kyoto in just 2 hours and ten minutes.

Children are all happy and stimulated by their surroundings - so parents don't need to worry.  Oh and it hasn't been windy at all!