Once again, we had opted to go on the optional day excursion along with about another 15 or so of the group. Trudy and Rob were joining us. Some the other people in the group had decided to do their own thing. One couple were visiting their daughter who worked in Tokyo, another wanted to see Sumo wrestling in action, etc. ect. I must admit the flexibility that is built into our itineraries is great as you can do your own thing at various times if that is what you want. Our first stop today was a visit to the oldest Buddhist temple in Tokyo. The largest religion in Japan is Shinto, followed closely by Buddhism. The temple, Senso-ji Hondo was impressive and surrounded by other temples many other opportunities to make offerings and spend money. Again, it was busy, but we were given plenty of time to explore. We wandered the narrow but busy back streets surrounding the temples and enjoyed some window shopping before meeting back up with our guide, boarding the coach and heading to Tokyo Tower. On the way our coach was held up in a traffic jam as many large, reinforced armoured black vans, with loudspeakers and people making a terrible noise made their way through the city. There were many police about supervising the traffic, but I have to say it was a little frightening. Our guide said it was a political protest against the current government and the Prime Minister. We finally arrived at our destination of Tokyo Tower. It was busy but we enjoyed the views of Tokyo afforded to us from the 333-metre tower. We had good viewing but unfortunately it was not clear enough to see Mt Fuji. After enjoying a light lunch at the tower we were taken to the Shibuya crossing, one of the busiest pedestrian crossings in the world. It was pretty amazing to see the mass of humans crossing the roads at the same time. We also visited a statue of a famous dog called Hachi who featured in a 2009 movie called Hatchie: A Dog’s Tale which starts Richard Gere and you apparently need a box of tissues if you watch it! From here we continued on to see the Statue of Liberty, Tokyo. The statue is a smaller version of the real thing and was originally installed as a temporary tribute to the relationship between Japan and France, but it is still there, overlooking Tokyo Bay. We returned to the hotel for our final night in Tokyo with a rather raucous night at the hotel’s restaurant with many people from our tour group.
😘 Enjoy
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