{"id":2295,"date":"2019-05-14T11:44:04","date_gmt":"2019-05-14T16:44:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/?p=2295"},"modified":"2019-05-14T11:44:05","modified_gmt":"2019-05-14T16:44:05","slug":"tokyo-city-tour-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/?p=2295","title":{"rendered":"Tokyo City Tour – Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n\n\n

We then proceeded to the Imperal Palace where the Emperor and his family live. Again, our timing was not optimal because much of the Palace grounds were closed since on the day following our tour \u2013 April 30th<\/sup> 2019 \u2013 the Emperor was going to abdicate and for three days thereafter there were events involving the abdication and the coronation of the new Emperor. What we learned is that although the Japanese follow the Gregorian calendar, they also have \u201ceras\u201d that are given a name \u2013 and each era starts with the coronation of a new emperor. For example the era associated with Hirohito who was the emperor during the second world war was the \u201cShowa\u201d era, his son Akihito who is now abdicating had an era named \u201cHeisei\u201d and the era of the new emperor who is taking over \u2013 Emperor Naruhito \u2013 will have an era called \u201cReiwa\u201d!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given that access to the palace was limited, the images shown below are stock pictures from the internet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Imperial Palace <\/em><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"

Nijubashi Bridge – within the palace grounds<\/strong><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

We were then taken to a location where the Japanese have a smaller version of the Statue of Liberty \u2013 apparently the only ones that exist is the one in NY, one in Paris and this one in Tokyo. We also were taken to view this very large \u2013 gargantuan robot \u2013 which apparently is associated with some movie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"

Odaiba Statue of Liberty Replica <\/em><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We then went to a lunch that was provided by the tour operator\n\u2013 nice enough location \u2013 but lousy food. I think if my lunches were like the\none that I ate, I\u2019d also be slim like the Japanese. I had chosen the chicken\noption and was served about 4 ounces of breast, literally 3 pieces of fries and\na couple of pieces of vegetables. With it came some soup that looked like a consomm\u00e9.\nIt was all edible \u2013 but that was about it! I was obviously not the only one who\nwas unimpressed with the lunch because our guide asked people on the bus how\nthey liked the lunch and there was vocal disapproval! Anyway, between the\nwalking and the limited eating, I am sure it was good for my attempts at weight\nloss!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With that came the end of the tour and we made our way to the\nmetro station to return to where Lekshmi lives. Now this was an adventure in\nitself. We had no idea of how to use the Metro and most of what was written was\nin Japanese though there were a few signs and maps in English. We spent almost\n30 minutes trying to figure out how to get to our destination. Our problem was\nthat despite our best efforts we could not find the station on the map where we\nwere headed to. We even sought the help of a young couple who spoke adequate\nEnglish. She spent about 10 minutes looking for the station and then told us to\nwait while she sought assistance. She went and asked some official and when she\ncame back she told us that we were looking at the wrong map \u2013 we were looking\nat the Japanese Railway map when we should have been looking at the Metro map!\nSort of like looking at an Amtrak map when we should be looking a Metro map in\nthe US. Once we headed to the Metro section, all was well \u2013 we bought a ticket\nand then proceeded to the train making sure we were headed in the right\ndirection. Then we anxiously sat watching each station and hoping that we would\nnot miss the correct station to get off. The doors stay open for literally 15\nseconds when it comes to getting off so it requires a quick decision. There is\neven an announcement that passengers exiting at \n\u201cblank\u201d station should make their way to the exit before the train comes\nto a stop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The railway system in Japan and the metro in Tokyo is truly\nimpressive. It is comprehensive, all encompassing, clean, super efficient,\npunctual beyond belief and fast. It is not cheap and spending the equivalent of\n$5 for a round trip journey on the metro is common \u2013 which seems a lot given\nthat incomes are relatively moderate. Trump frequently criticizes some of the\nairports in the US such as New York La Guardia which he \u2013 correctly \u2013 says is\nantiquated compared to airports abroad like Dubai and Singapore. Trump has\nobviously not used metro system in Tokyo and is probably not familiar with the\nmetro system in NYC because he would have some scathing criticism of the system\nin NY and other major cities in the US. There is not a trace of vandalism in\nthe trains or the stations. There are lots of young people in Tokyo but causing\nthe sort of destruction that one sees in some parts of the US is non-existent\nbased on our limited travels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway all went well and then we took a taxi for a ten minute ride to where Lekshmi lives and that was the end of our adventure for the day. We were both exhausted having done almost 7 miles of walking despite being on a tour bus much of the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brito had cooked a delicious dinner \u2013 Cornish hen, some\nveggies and a black bean red bean combination thin gravy served with brown\nrice. A gourmet meal which we relished especially after the lunch we had!<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We then proceeded to the Imperal Palace where the Emperor and his family live. Again, our timing was not optimal because much of the Palace grounds were closed since on the day following our tour \u2013 April 30th 2019 \u2013 the Emperor was going to abdicate and for three days thereafter there were events involving […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2295"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2295"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2382,"href":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2295\/revisions\/2382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}