Day 46, 47: Tokyo and home

Our hotel in Tokyo was in the sports area, overlooking the baseball stadium, rugby stadium, tennis courts and the new olympic stadium, currently under construction.

We walked into Shinjuku, Yanmei shopping in Uniqlo and Gu, whilst I checked out electronics at BIC Camera. We ate lunch at Zanmai sushi, hidden away on the 3rd floor at the station. It’s a chain, where the owner hits the news regularly, when he purchases the worlds most expensive tuna. The sushi is always good.

It was raining, so we took the chance to check the world’s busiest station serving west Tokyo. It is chaos with the different train operators each having their part of the station, a multitude of passageways and tens of thousands of people. We must have looked really lost, as several people offered to help us, both Japanese and foreigners living in Japan. It took an hour, but we found where Yanmei needed to take the train to the Airb’n’b she is staying and find how she should travel to Narita airport on Sunday, without spending a fortune.

Exhausted, we walked back to the hotel to pick up our baggage, again admiring the view from the hotel.

We took the metro back to Shinjuku station, and tried to find somewhere for coffee, all were full, and we couldn’t find a takeaway place. So we said our goodbyes and went  in each our direction.

I went back to Narita, to the same hotel I had stayed a week ago, picked up the baggage I had left, and repacked everything.

As I write this I am back in Helsinki, after a smooth flight from Japan. I spent my last yen at uniqlo and posted my wifi router back to Japan Wireless. It has been an invaluable companion.

47 eventful days in Japan come to an end. I can only encourage anybody reading this to really consider Japan for a future holiday, it has pretty much everything; big and small vibrant cities, fantastic mountains, countryside and coastlines, lots to see and do, great food; but most of all, fantastic people.

Thanks for reading!