D3 Tokyo for the night

The trip back to Tokyo took 2.5 hours.
We went past Sky Tree again, illuminated this time.

The hotel we are staying is a capsule hotel. Thought we should try it once. And it probably will be the only time. It was interesting experience. But rather inconvenient and rather small, even for 2 small people like us.

D1 Tokyo station city and Akihabara

After transferring to our second hotel, we set off to Tokyo station. We exchanged our JR pass, booked sleeper train for Dec 6th, bought Nikko pass

and had lunch there in the Ramen street. The waitress had to help us to use the vending machine for ramen tickets. It was delicious! Egg yolk that melts in the soup and pork melts in your mouth. Again we did not go to the most popular ramen restaurant as there were 2 lines waiting outside the shop.

We went to Akihabara after visiting Imperial East Garden. The early sun sets really upsetted my body clock. Always feel we are two hours ahead of actual time.

D1 Imperial East Garden

Our second destination is the Imperial East Garden.
Jon was fascinated by the wide moat, high city walls and the guard houses.

Near the entrance, we were fortunate enough to see some sakura; though sparse and small as it is the autumn sakura.

The ground was vast; previously ground of a palace a few hundred years ago.
There are quite a few trees in different shades of orange. However, most of the maple trees are still green in colour. It would look amazing when they change colour too.

Overall it was a great way to wind down there in the afternoon sun. Spacious garden in the middle of Tokyo, traditional gates against high rises buildings. We may pay a visit again towards end of our trip.

Tsukiji market

Our first day in Japan started nice and early at 4:00am! First stop is the famous Tsukiji market tuna auction.


Only 2 groups of 60 visitors are allowed daily. Fortunately our hotel is 5-10mins walk away. We got there just after 4:30 and we only managed to get in the later group.

The auction itself wasn't as exciting. We had seen similar tuna in Maldives and they also debone and remove the skin in under 3 mins!

However we had the best sushi ( 大和）for breakfast! So fresh and tasty and it's our first time having sea urchin:)

Urchin

Clam miso soup

Only after we left the sushi bar, had we realised a queue was forming outside.  Down the alley, the number 1 sushi bar at Tsukiji had over 50 people waiting outside. And it's only 7am!

the second queue

Arrival

We Arrived at Tokyo after a 15 hour long journey, including 2 hours break at LCCT.
Our plane landed at Tokyo 50mins ahead of schedule; which made it possible to catch public transport to our hotel in Tsukiji.
After taking monorail and 2 transfers onto different subways, we checked in at APA hotel at 12am. During one of the transfer, we caught sight of Tokyo Tower.

Though we had meals on the plane, We were both keen for midnight snack. Jon was too hungry to wait for photo.

My pre-ordered 3G sim card made on time to the hotel, but could not get it working:(