It figures on our very last day at Mt. Koya that the sun would make an appearance! When we woke up the mountain was drenched in sunlight and it felt good to be travelling in nice weather for a change. We had our 2nd elaborate breakfast, and packed our bags.
We caught the bus for the furnicular train, to the regular train. We had to change once more and by that time we met these two gals who were obviously not Japanese. In fact, one was Russian and one was Texan. It was obvious who was who. They were both really friendly, and the Texan gal talked nonstop for 50 minutes about living in Japan and all the quirks. I think she was overjoyed to finally be able to talk as fast as she wanted, so Dennis and I got our ears blown off 8^) Just joking! She had some great insights though, so it was neat to hear her perspective.
When we finally made it to Tokyo, we were really tired after having travelled all day. For our final night, we stayed in the Hilton near Shinjuku Station. Classy joint. It took them a couple times before they got us a room-we reserved one with a KING size bed, and they were going through remodelling-so it took em awhile to track one down for us.
Anyways, we dropped our bags off, got cleaned up and went out for dinner. We thought we’d try Thai food. The concierge service lady recommended a place about a mile away, so we walked there. It was decent, but not as good as the Thai food we had in Galway, IR.
We knew we’d be leaving the next day so we went back to the hotel early, and watched some canned CNN news on the tv. Soon, I was counting sheep dreaming about leaving the muggy and relentlessly rainy weather of Japan. I was craving the dry and blue sky stuff back at home.
The Tokyo Hilton responded very professionally to my insistance that we have a king bed in a non-smoking room. We should have taken their free shuttle from Shinjuku station, instead of the short subway ride, but it worked out.
We got a couple of nice photos of the city lights from our window, after figuring out how to set the camera flash and exposure settings.
The hotel is located almost next to the Tokyo Metropolitian buildings, with the fantastic views of Tokyo from the 46th floor. At first we thought the viewing areas were closed on Saturdays, since the front doors were locked, but we wandered around the side and jumped on an elevator.
Tokyo, what an urban sprawl! Pavement and densely spaced buildings, as far as the eye can see.
Wandering around Shinjuku area could be a lot of fun, but after days of being sick and fighting the rain, we just wandered into one of the countless shopping buildings to look around. They had some near electronic stuff, cameras, PDAs, ipods, but the Japanese knack for shopping with endless energy eluded us, and we retired to the hotel room.
We did get to enjoy one great experience, however. We were in an elevator, coming down from a pedestrian overpass, when a Japanese business man in a suit noticed we were looking at a map of the area.
He asked us, in pretty good english, where we were going. We told him the name of the camera store we were looking for, and he offered to guide us there personally!
We chatted along the way, and he complimented Clare on her Japanese. She demurred, claiming no skill (a very Japanese type of response!). I complemented him on his English, to which he replied he also had no skill in the matter.
The Japanese are very modest people, as a rule, and will deny and refuse any compliments bestowed upon them.
So, he guided us to near the camera store, and then wished us good night as he made his way home on his bicycle – suit, tie, and all!