Japan/TransPacific Cruise Day 3 Tokyo “17,861 Steps, Oh My” or “Why is there a Down Escalator but not an Up Escalator?”

I woke up at 2:00 am and could not get back to sleep. I tried all of my tricks. At home I would get up and move around, but there is nowhere to do that here. I read for a while and try to sleep some more, but it is not happening. Rob wakes up and we give up on further sleep around 5:00. I could figure out what time this would be at home but that might be too hard. We have a tour of Tokyo today. I cannot remember if this is a bus tour with some walking or an all walking tour. Come on bus. We head down for breakfast, which is included with our room. I see Martha in the lobby when we are going past. She has just landed and she will be going on the tour with us. I am impressed with her stamina. The breakfast is an interesting mix of Asian and Western food. The scrambled eggs could have used another couple of minutes in the pan. I passed on the miso soup and I really do want to know who eats potato salad for breakfast. It is all good and since we did not eat dinner we are getting hungry. We see Anne and Robert there. We are to meet in the lobby at 9:15 for our tour. Seth has hired a young Filipino woman to work with him. I have emailed with Mariah, I finally get to meet her. Our guide for the day is Katsu. We need to go down to the first floor to get to the street. Mike is joining us, Mary is staying behind. We walk down the street then have to turn around. We cannot enter the subway here. We go back to the hotel and take the elevator to a basement floor and there is the subway. We are each given a ticket and told that we will need to keep this ticket for the entire day. You put it into a slot, it is read then it spits out the other side. Make sure that you grab it before you leave. At first this does not go smoothly, but we get better at it.

We are told to walk up or down the stairs on the left side, not the right side. We have a few people who are mobility challenged. One woman is using a cane and is not doing well. After the second subway ride it is decided that she will go back to the hotel. One gentleman is not feeling well so he is going back with her. There is a lot of standing around and waiting while this gets sorted out. We see the worlds busiest pedestrian crossing, Shibuya Crossing, with up to 3,000 people crossing at the same time. Our group crossed and we did not lose anyone on the way. We are told about a dog that waited faithfully every day for his owner to come back on the train. The man died suddenly and the dog still showed up every day at 5:00. The people around the area fed and took care of the dog. After the dog died they built a small park with a memorial to the dog. I must say that there is a lot of visual overload here. I hope that my photos convey this. We are keeping up a pretty good pace. Every subway has stairs and long halls. I get excited whenever I see an escalator but for some reason there are more down escalators than up excalators. We get a couple of breaks. My IT bands are knotting up so whenever I can sit I massage them. This is for 7 hours, I can do this. I mean, when will I be back in Tokyo? We keep walking, the narrative is not excessive but we do get information on the way. We stop at a Shinto Temple and are told where to enter and to bow before entering. It is pretty and peaceful. We keep walking and people keep asking when we will be getting lunch, they are getting hungry. We are taking longer to walk the route that Katsu has planned, yeah, we are old. At least it is a beautiful day. We see cherry blossoms and a park where many photos of Tokyo are taken.

We finally get a lunch break. It is almost 2:00, the crowd is hungry. We start to wander then go back to ask Katsu for a recommendation for a ramen place. Oh, he has just the one. He used to live in this area. We did ask that it be a sit down place. We walk a few blocks and we are there. You pay at a machine before you enter, a ticket spits out, you hand it to a guy then find a place to sit. We choose two of the large ramen bowls. It comes with pork, egg, spinach and seaweed in a lovely broth. We head up some narrow steep stairs, but there is a promise of a place to sit so I can do this. There are pitchers of water on the table. We grab what we thought were napkins but turn out to be bibs. We were told that to show your appreciation for your food you must slurp. Rob said that he had been training for this his entire life. The ramen is delicious, I cannot finish my bowl, so Rob finishes it. Typically in a ramen shop you only sit for 15 minutes. Katsu said that since we were foreigners it would be excused. Good, we are not moving anywhere fast. We are to meet up at 3:15 with our group. Seth and Brandon are already there. Seth has a treat for us. He bought Kit-Kats in three different flavors; biscuit, strawberry and green tea. I want to try biscuit. Rob makes a comment about not being adventurous enough for green tea so Seth opens one for us and makes us try it. It actually was good, not as good as the biscuit, but good. We have decided that we can skip the next temple so that we can get to Tokyo Sky Tree in time for our tickets. More walking and another subway ride. I should have counted how many subway rides that we had. We get to the Sky Tree. The woman who went back to the hotel this morning is going to join us for the Sky Tree. She was instructed to take a cab to the cab stand in front of the plaza. Unfortunately the cab did not drop her off there and she is not sure where we are. Katsu runs upstairs to get our tickets validated so that we do not miss our turn. The rest of us head upstairs for a restroom break and a chance to sit. Seth has set out to find the woman and yes, we get there. This is at the end of a very long day and we are exhausted. The view is nice, would have been nicer in clear weather but the clouds rolled in.

Some people are going to be taking cabs back, nope, we paid for our subway ticket, we are going to use it. It is now down to Rob & I, Mike, Anne & Robert and Seth & Brandon. Seth tried to talk us into a cab, Rob’s back is really hurting but he said that he can do it. It is rush hour, but we are hitting the trains at the beginning of lines so there are plenty of seats. On the second last train I see a picture indicating that if you are holding on to one of the ceiling straps you should not have a backpack on your back. Oops. Oh well. Mike and I get into a discussion at the what the symbol of the red circle with the slash through it is called. I had heard a name for it once, but we cannot come up with it. That would be a good trivia question. We get off the last subway and have about 4 blocks to walk. Amazingly the knots in my legs are starting to loosen. I do not walk on concrete that much and this has been a killer to my legs. As we go in I see a woman from our group who’s husband went back sick. I told her that I have a number of OTC stomach meds if he needs anything. We get to the room and Rob lays on the bd to flatten his back and goes quickly to sleep. I am using the massage gun on my legs and trying to sort out a couple of things, but the bed is calling my name. I know that I am tired, I did not even upload my photos. I crash, yeah, I will just lay here for a bit. The phone rings, Rob and I are so out of it we don’t know what to do. He answers, yes, they want my Pepto Bismol. I always come prepared. When she comes to the door she apologizes for waking us up. No, it was needed, who knows how long we would have slept in our clothes with the lights on?