My Story: Tokyo to Okinawa

Monday, March 18, 2019

Tokyo to Okinawa

Dan and I were up early on Monday. First we thought we'd workout,

but then decided we still felt tired.

I hadn't brought workout clothes because I never imagined we'd have time to exercise.

Pretty little park with our hotel in background.

We ended up going for a walk (in my Vans. When I decided to take them on the trip, I'd remembered how comfortable they were on our trip to Ireland, yet I'd forgotten five months had passed and now the cushion and support were non-existent. Oops.

I wished I'd brought my lite tennis shoes. But it turned out just fine.)

Our hotel was directly across the from Imperial Palace (think White House).

We walked all around the neighborhood, but couldn't actually walk into the Palace grounds.

It was a beautiful morning, not too cold. Felt like we could be in any big city. I was surprised that most signs were English Characters (office buildings, hotels, etc.) and all the street signs were in Japanese and English.

At 9:00 we packed our bags, left them with the bellman and checked out of the hotel

to go out exploring. Marty and friends often just got breakfast at 7-11. They're all over Japan, actually have good food, and one of the only places that take American ATM cards.

However, you know how it is traveling... "good food" isn't always the taste you expect.

Marty got rice wrapped in seaweed (I love seeing this boy love things that he would have had a fit about two years ago!) and the boys tried an egg mcmuffin. I got a banana. We decided to look for other alternatives than 7-11 on other days.

We started at Asakusa -- an area with shrines, temples and a souvenir street, Nakamise.

I bought more chopsticks.

We arrived just as a Chinese (Japanese?) dragon was making its way to the Sensoji Buddhist Temple at the end of the street!

At many of the shrines we visited, you could get your fortune.

You put a coin in the slot, and pull a stick out of the canister.

The stick has a number on it (glad Marty can read Japanese)

that related to a drawer with a fortune in it.

You could get a "best" fortune, a "good" fortune, or a "poor" fortune.

If you got a bad one, you tied it on a tree so it wouldn't follow you home.

We all got good ones!

The cherry blossoms weren't open yet, but they were getting ready!

Next stop was the Tokyo Skytree for a view of the entire city.

We waited in a long line and were getting a bit nervous about having time to return to our hotel, pick up our bags and make our flight to Okinawa. But Marty assured us that flights and security are more laid back in Japan. Yes they are.

(In fact, they have a liquid check -- they put your water bottles on a scale-like device and then give them back to you. Why don't we have that? Marty said other countries say the US has Security Theater. Maybe.)

Stir-fried noodles for lunch. We sat at a counter which surrounded the cook station in the middle.

Fast and yummy.

Look at Nick being such a good sport. He couldn't stop coughing.

And he was exhausted after two days of being sick.

You know how when you're in bed for a couple of days, when you finally get up, the least bit of movement is exhausting? Well we ended up marching him over 11 miles.

But he was patient.

Fun fact, probably 50% of people in Tokyo were wearing surgical masks.

I read that they wear them to protect others from coughs, themselves from allergies and even some wear them like we would a baseball hat -- to not worry about make-up etc. when running out.

We should have stuck a mask on Nick.

We took lots and lots of trains, subways, light rails, busses and Shinkansen.

Our flight to Okinawa was over three hours.

We took a monorail from the airport (only about 15 minutes) then walked a few blocks through town to our hotel. It was humid and warm. Definitely more tropical in Okinawa.