We flew a direct Air NZ flight which left NZ at 12.05 am on 17th Oct and landed in Tokyo at 6am the same day (a 10 hour flight), NZ is 4 hours ahead. We met John Chisholm in the immigration queue at the airport. It is our first time in Japan. We took the train from the airport to Shinagawa Station. I thought the train might go faster - it took about 90mins. Here is a photo from the train - a high rise, and wires. It kind of looked like Lego land Japanese style.
Rugby was on a billboard in Shinagawa station. Could one of these teams reach the final?
In Shinagawa Station. Everyone focused on getting to work?
We checked into our hotel for one night, The Strings near Shinagawa. It started to rain but we went for a walk despite the rain.Here are some first sights of Tokyo - one child in the back and one in the front.
High rise.
In the park below the buildings was this interactive foot platform. Feet can tell you everything. It was too wet to have a go.
Behind the park was the Minato river. This was just after the Hagibis typhoon. A bit of rubbish but not too much.
We found a Japanese restaurant in the station and I was reading aloud what I thought things were. Yuko at the table beside me listened, then offered to help and translated. She is a therapist teacher for preschool children. She is my first Japanese friend. She was truly beautiful, and very helpful. We had a delicious seafood dinner.
We went back to the hotel. We had a hot chocolate each in the bar there. It cost as much as our dinner! There are 60 yen to one NZ dollar. I double 2800 and then I double the number and take $10 off (Ed., Tolly's brain works differently to most peoples'.) So two hot chocolates cost $46. (Remarkably close, Ed.) We stayed in this hotel as we were meeting Annette and Neal Plowman either later tonight or first thing tomorrow morning. They are part of our group of six.
We got a message from Neal and Annette. They were going to bed early too. We would catch up with them in the morning. I said the hot chocolate was too expensive anyway.