Tokyo -- First Impressions

Getting to our hotel couldn’t have been easier. You only have to stand still for 30 seconds and some helpful individual will pop out of thin air to help you out. We travelled into central Tokyo in style on the super-smart Narita Express (or N-Ex), taking us through the Tokyo suburbs as well as lush farmland and finally deep under Tokyo. We actually arrived in at Tokyo basement level 5! They’re still building underground lines in Tokyo and just keep going deeper and deeper and deeper.

We arrived at our hotel at midday – 2 hours early for our check-in, so decided to follow the rather massive procession working its way up the Ginza main street:

Following the procession fortuitously led us to a Lawsons convenience store where a super friendly store manager helped us to buy tickets for the Studio Gibli museum (one day he’s going to visit England so he can verify the myth of the double decker bus for himself) from the Japanese-only Loppi ticket vending machine. We’re booked in for 2pm tomorrow afternoon.

Opposite Lawsons we had to stop to take photographs of the slightly improbably motorway that is built on top of the river. Yes: on top. How else can you fit a city in the middle of Tokyo unless you fill in space needlessly wasted by things like rivers:

The architecture in Tokyo really has to be seen to be believed – there isn’t a meter squared of wasted space. I wouldn’t be surprised if there wasn’t another motorway built on top of this one.

Next: Sapporo Beer Hall