TOKYO, JAPAN DAY ONE!

We woke up to Mt. Fuji smack dab, front and center, right outside our window!  What a breathtaking sight to behold!

While our Captain oh Captain docked the ship at the Tokyo port, we finalized our packing and left our room for the very LAST time.  Soooo sad, as it had been such a comfortable room!  Our first views of Tokyo were beautiful!  (The blue skies and bright sunshine added to the beauty!)

We had our LAST breakfast and enjoyed coffee and lots of sunshine while we waited for Dave and Michelle’s number to be called, signaling that it was time to pick up their luggage.  The entire process was easy peasy.  We bid farewell to The Explorer, grabbed an Uber to the Inter Continental, home for the next three nights.

While John and Dave checked in, Michelle and I checked out the bathrooms!  They were over-the-top unbelievable!  After automatically flushing (yes, the seats were heated), a light came on for a final cleansing spray.

Will you just look at the control panel!  We had options, lots of options! (That we were too afraid to try!)

Again, the children’s seat in each stall was an amazing accessory in Japan!

Once checked in and unpacked, we set off walking to look for a place for lunch!  (We had to figure all of this out for ourselves once again!  (😳)  Every gas station we passed in Japan had the pumps hanging from the ceiling.  In many of them, gasoline attendants stood at attention waiting for the next car to arrive to be serviced!

Shrines showed up here and there along our route.  Earlier we had learned the significance of the white streamers, however, were clueless to the meaning of the frogs.

We found a cute little cafe that specialized in warm soups with noodles!  Michelle and I were HAPPY campers!

This is what the girls ordered.  YUM.

And this is what the boys ordered.  YUM!

John was a bit tired after lunch, so he chose to swing for a moment!

Live walls are BIG in Japan!

As are teeny tiny shopping carts!

We walked into a pet shop that had tiny (and do I mean tiny) puppies for sale.  (I fell in love!)

We walked all over trying to find a shop where we could buy pearls at a good price!  One was located on the fifth floor of a building but the elevator wouldn’t stop at the fifth floor.  We made it to the third floor and walked up steps to the fifth floor, but the door was locked!  (Bad for business!)  We Ubered it to another area where another recommended store was located.  Google told us the store was open, however, when we got there the door was closed and locked!  (Bad for business!)

We Ubered it back to the hotel in a car with doily’s for seat covers,

and a driver that wore white gloves.  (Both very common in Japan!)

Earlier I had seen a car with “DiDi” on the side of it!  Sure enough, there was an ad for the “DiDi” car company in our Uber!

Our pre-dinner cocktails were held in Dave and Michelle’s room.  Dave had to make and pour our drinks and Boogie and Kasia were not there to entertain us.  (We were NOT on the Explorer any longer!)

We found a delightful sushi restaurant, Kyotatsu, for dinner near our hotel.  All four of us ordered Sushi and Sashimi dinners that were delish!  Our waitress actually doubled our order (BIG miscommunication!) but we proceeded to eat every single morsel!  Sadly, there was no after dinner entertainment provided!  (Reality check!)

It was a great day today in Tokyo (even though we had to fend for ourselves). We only have two more tour days before the long journey home!  We plan on enjoying every single second of it!