Japan 2020 - Tokyo 14th and 15th February

 14th February
We got some sleep! slept in until 10.15 which is unheard of for us, we are normally awake at 6.30 at the latest! we needed it though. First coffee then off out and about. I had seen that the flower market near us had a cafe which sold food with edible flowers so we headed there for breakfast.
This is French toast with whipped cream chocolate and sprinkled with edible flowers, and it was just as fabulous as it looks! I had rose tea with mine.

I had read about the Hei shrine which was literally 10 minutes from our hotel. I really hadnt realised how many shrines there are all over. I caught my first glimpse of people getting shrine stamps but I didnt really know what they were at that point. We observed the hand washing ritual. The shrine was so beautiful.

We had a leisurely daunder back to the hotel then set off to find somewhere for our evening meal. 5 mins from the hotel was the Akasaka Biz towers which  had loads of restaurants. 

Gorgeous window displays!

We chose a noodle one upstairs. I had a slight panic when i thought we had drunk something we were meant to dip our fingers in but i was wrong. A couple sat at the next table and they drank it too! It tasted a bit funny but i think it was green tea of some kind. This seemed to be a thing that you would get presented with a cup of green tea either hot or cold with  a meal much like we could get a glass of water here.

15th Feb

Oh the jet lag .... we woke up at 3.30 most nights, ended up eating snax :-) we had a small sugar loaf we shared, calling it magic bread as it did seem to get us off to sleep again!

This morning we headed back to Akasaka biz towers and went to Salty Sunny Bondi for breakfast, i had granola and Scoobs had ginger soup. Today we mastered the metro! With the help of a lovely lady, so many people would stop and ask if you needed help, such a friendly nation.

Still jet lagged up to the eyeballs we headed up to the National Museum. We visited the special exhibition on early religion. 

I loved the 11 headed Buddha and the huge statues of the 4 divine gods. There was a room devoted to laquer screens one of which had the most beautiful tiger on it. great display of samurai armour and swords, oh my goodness the swords!

Photography was not allowed but i did manage to visit the museum shop. Postcards of course plus some washi tape and after the debacle last year in Florence when i ended up with very expensive napkin rings!!! I made sure this was actually washi tape!

Our body clocks were still all over the place and it was about 3 before we realised we really needed something to eat, it was a pretty nice day so we ended up with a hot dog in a tortilla wrap, it was soooooooo good. We ended up in Dozo in Biz towers for supper, I had fish and rice, Talipa i think, it was affa fine :-) then back to hotel with more magic bread for the jet lag.