Tokyo

So we were a little bit more awake yesterday, and much more up to a bit of exploration. We are staying outside of Tokyo so we got the train in. The train itself was easy enough to get, but the metro system in Tokyo is quite complicated, especially when you get a map that only has Japanese written on it. We could see Mount Fuji from the train. 
We walked around a park called Ueno park. The lake was still frozen in places, but melting enough that the ducks could push their way through the ice. We visited a little temple here - we had to wash our hands and mouths before entering, and also light some incense. We then managed to get the metro in towards central Tokyo. Here we visited the Imperial Palace gardens - they were very big, but a lot of it is closed off to the public. There is a moat surrounding the whole place, and in places it has some really steep drops. The earlies cherry trees were just beginning to come into blossom. We say plenty of joggers too, and I nearly got hit by a bike. There aren't many cycle tracks here - they all just use the footpaths. 

We went got lunch in a Japanese restaurant. I'm not entirely sure what I had - fried pork, with rice and egg and some sort of sauce, but whatever it was, it was beautiful. I decided to practice my Japanese, and the waitress was very impresses when I told her that it was delicious. I also managed to eat the whole lot with chopsticks, and realised that I had been thought how to use them wrong. (or more that I misunderstood what had been said to me!)

After lunch we visited the Sony building, and spent some time just wandering the streets. It's just floors and floors of Sony showrooms. We spent a good bit of time looking for tourist info, which is actually difficult enough to find. However, we did manage to find a whole shop dedicated to Hello Kitty.

The Christmas Chapel Hotel. 

There are some things here that I would love to bring home - the people know how to queue, and are polite. There is also a rule that phone calls are not made on trains or buses. Also the people seem to have a good way of life - there are plenty of parks around the city, and they really seem to be a place to just sit and relax. Many people also paint here. They also seem to sleep on trains quite a bit!