August 14 - 1 day of Japan

Today we're lucky to get to do one day in Japan.

We start the day with the hotel's breakfast buffet and then take a taxi to the Imperial Palace . Geoff's been there before and he has a plan. We'll taxi to a particular gate; walk a particular route on the palace grounds and end up over at the science museum. I suppose it's just OUR luck that on this freakishly HOT day that particular gate is closed and we'll have to walk a WAYS to get to an open gate. It's all a good time :o) I never thought I'd get to see where samurai stayed!




After exploring the palace grounds and the science museum, we have a mini happy hour at the hotel's Manhattan Lounge up at the top of the hotel. Nice views :o) While we're there Geoff gets a noodle restaurant recommendation. Now we know what we're doing for dinner.


Now a side note: Tokyo has the coolest taxi action ever! (Not that I've had tons of taxi experience) They drive the Toyota Crown which is LOTS more roomy than the Toyota Corollas of Thailand. (Actually, they also drove the Crowns in Singapore) The neat thing about the Crown is that it has an automatic door. The driver can remotely open/close the rear passenger side door. The taxi drivers in Tokyo are also very presentable. They wear WHITE GLOVES. If they weren't wearing a suit, they at least had on a vest over their button down and tie. Every taxi we rode had a GPS/navigation system. Just cool.

OK, now back to dinner... We'll go to Tsurutontang in Roppongi. The concierge helps us get a reservation and we catch a taxi out front with the help of the doorman/porter/taxi-guy. The taxi drops us off at the streetcorner and points toward the restaurant. Cool! Pay driver... climb out of taxi... okaaaaaay.... which restaurant was he pointing to? Geoff asks a random nice person which restaurant goes with the name on our restaurant-info-print-out provided by the concierge. Cool... we're good now. We're now IN the restaurant and OFF the street where the pimps are trying to drum up business for their "staff". (It really wasn't that bad, if Geoff hadn't pointed them out I don't know that I would've noticed) We enjoyed a deeeeeelicious dinner in our own private room.



Just needed to ring the bell for service :o)


This is not very "American"... it's raw horsemeat.


Yummy, yummy curry udon in my tummy!


After a wonderful meal we taxi over to Ginza and take a few photos among all the big lights.... It's closed by the time we get there. Just perfect... seriously! That way we aren't even tempted to spend the money we don't have :o)