I woke up fairly early but managed to reign myself in for the rest of the troops until around 8, maybe just a little bit before. We went downstairs and tried the included breakfast which was really a continental breakfast and then headed out to find the Hato Bus terminal at Hamamatsucho station. The walk really should be about 5 minutes but finding the actual entrances to the terminal we need made it take a few minutes more than that. We managed to gt in and sign up for the Panoramic Tokyo Sunrise tour. It is an all day affair that we took our first Monday last time as well. The tour was mostly full. As we seated it appeared I might have an empty seat next to me until the very last moment before the bus was supposed to depart. At that point a very attractive Chinese woman named "Serena" from Hong Kong sat down next to me. She didn't speak English very well but we chatted as well as could be. She was very interested in all the cherry blossoms to be seen and at one point she showed me the pictures she had already taken on her trip and I swear they were all of food. I was practically in love at that point. In any event, this story ends up typical Tom so we'll get to that later...
The tour starts out by visiting the Meiji Shrine which is a Shinto shrine. Our guide was named Kuno which apparently is a ninja reference. She was a slightly older heavyset woman who was very fluent in English but not quite so funny as Mr Sato from our first time on the tour. She really seemed to be honest about being from a ninja clan that has passed through her family for generations and hundreds of years. It was difficult to tell if she was joking or telling the truth but she had a handful of ninja weapons for the fun of things anyway, including throwing stars and roped hooks. It was interesting either way.
Shintoism believes in millions of gods and is basically a very folk religion. The shrine is big and impressive though the original building was destroyed in World War II. The original gate does stand however. We spent about half an hour and then headed on to the Imperial Palace where we came up to the front gate then walked across though some of the outer grounds to a side gate. There we had to wait a few minutes for the bus to arrive because it apparently went to a different parking area. From there we drove to Asakusa which has the Sensoji Temple and is one of the biggest and most important temples in all of Tokyo. We spent a few trips at Asakusa during our last time in Japan and since we knew we'd be going back we started out by visiting the 7-11 to hit an ATM. Unfortunately that took a few minutes and we got separated from the main group, which was to be expected because the stop was considered free time. After the 7-11 we walked through the shops and I found the place that had the bean paste filled deep fried dumplings that we got last time and had a green tea one. Brien tried the Japanese apricot one and Ronni tasted that and decided to get her own. This led up to the idea that we all used our coins and were running tighter on time. We did not try to get our fortunes at the temple this time.
When we got back to the bus most of the crowd was there and we waited until 10 minutes past the designated time. The bus left but the girl from Hong Kong never showed up. So that was it, never saw her again... Anyway from there we went to have lunch at the same place we had the lunch stop last time which was apparently a hotel restaurant owned by the JR line railways. The food was reasonably good and I think Brien and Ronni were starving fom the continental breakfasts so they ate well there. The lunch stop was punctuated by a very brief but severe looking rain storm that ended well before we left.
After lunch we took the 50 minute Symphony cruise in Tokyo Bay. The weather was a bit chilly to sit outside for too long but it was a relaxing ride nonetheless. After the ride we got back on the bus and headed to Daiba for a look at the replica of the Statue of Liberty then some free time shopping where we hit the Toys R Us again for a few minutes. From there they took us back to the station. We asked about where we could get our rail passes and they offered to take us to Shinagawa Station where we could get them. We said sure, we could take the train back to Hamamatsucho after we were done. The guide thought the place closed at 6pm but we should have plenty of time to get there. However there was a lot of traffic and things were looking grim but the woman that was conducting that bus called the office and found out that they actually closed at 7. We made it to the station by 6:25 or so. It was a short matter to get the passes from our vouchers then we took the Yamanote line back to our area. I did however make us get on the train going in the wrong direction for one stop first then found my error and managed to get us righted at the next stop.
After exiting the bus we passed by the Kirin City and I decided we may as well get dinner before heading to the hotel. Not Kirin City this time but our "Shouting Restaurant" from the last trip. It is apparently namd Tengu and the food was excellent again. We did a sampling of things from chicken katsu, sausages, yakitori, octopus sashimi, horsemeat sashimi and omelette. I had 4 beers. Brien had 2 sakes. And Ronni had two lemon soda thingies. Then we had dessert where they both had chocolate ice cream and I had a "Cafe Jelly" which was a coffee flavored gelatin with vanilla bean ice cream on top. All of it was very good. The place was relatively quiet when we got in but it started to get really loud and crowded in almost no time flat. By the time we left we had tasted a strange vegetable drink that tasted like celery from the table next to us who were a bunch of businessmen and one woman, all younger. They were very drunk and continuing to drink. It was very fun to watch.
After dinner we came in. I found the hotel phone had a message for me and after calling the front desk I was told it was Marina that left me the message, so I called her. We chatted for a bit and we should be meeting tomorrow night for dinner. I think it will be fun. It was nice talking to her again. At this point it is past midnight though so I am going to stop. The pics will be posted by Tuesday morning and I will link them then.
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