Day Two and we headed back into the city to visit the Edo Architectural Museum of Tokyo.  Tomoko organized a guide who was excellent. He spoke very good English and was extremely interesting.

We spent several hours wandering around the museum which had historic and antique displays, maps, videos, puppet displays....... as well as interactive displays and antique vehicles… a penny farthing bicycle, horse and carts and other historic forms of transport  set up for visitors to sit in …..irresistible to big and little kids alike !

We got the full history of Edo which Tokyo was previously called, until the Meiji period in 1868. The museum gives you a wonderful history walk through to today and many things we have seen at different times in Japan and wondered about fell into place.

For example - The fire service was an  important organization,  as you can imagine with all the wooden buildings. All the different standards representing each fire group were displayed.  Below the logo displayed on a large shield they have these long wide leather strips at the very top of the pole rather like a large mop head, which they could twirl. .I have often wondered what they are and why they are designed like this. The revelation was that these are to keep the sparks from the fire off the carriers head. Very clever!

There were intricately detailed models of villages and displays of the interiors of houses, geisha houses, kimono and fabric shops and much more.  The large wooden bridge you cross as you walk in is a half size replica of Nihonbashi Bridge.

You can stand on the bridge and overlook the replica Nakamura Theater which has regular activities and shows,  but unfortunately we missed them as the theatre was closed at 4.00pm before we had finished our tour with the guide.  There are several interactive displays and you learn about the many things that have shaped Tokyo city today.

There are several parts to the museum. The Edo period, Tokyo -  which is about the westernization of the city, while one level is totally devoted to the Edo Castle.

As we left we passed the Sumo Stadium where there were competitions going on. You can often go and watch some sumo here if you are interested.

On our way to the train station from the gardens, we stopped to have a look at this weird clock! On the face of the Nippon TV Tower it was designed by famous ( in Japan anyway) anime maker, Hayao Miyazaki. and sculpted by Shachimaru Kunio. This is his Nittere Ohdokei clock designed to represent his famous movie masterpiece, Howl’s Moving Castle, an animated Japanese fantasy film.

The largest animated clock in the world…this incredible creation is  32 feet high by 59 feet wide and weighs a massive 28 tons. It  is certainly as fantastical as you could see anywhere with a series of windows with obviously characters from the movie, doing various activities. Like a cuckoo clock… at set times everything swings into action and you have all these little vignettes doing different things. There is so much detail you can spend some time looking at all the features….really fascinating.

The animated show when it all springs to life starts 3 minutes and 45 seconds before each hour.
The Times Are –
Monday to Friday: 12:00, 15:00, 18:00, 20:00
Saturday and Sunday: 10:00, 12:00, 15:00, 18:00, 20:00

After leaving the clock as we headed for the station,  we passed  an area where elderly men were playing a board game with tiles rather like slim mahjong pieces, second hand books filled temporary canvas stalls and an old steam train rested in colourful gardens creating an interesting feature. Tokyo is a city with a split personality. You have  interesting, very modern glass monoliths towering above and unique human interest areas like these indispersed between them.

When Rowan and Tomoko  had asked was there something we particularly wanted to do I suggested it would be nice to have a meal that involved tabletop cooking. Japanese food is really delicious and we always look forward to some traditional Japanese cuisine when we visit.

They had booked a traditional tabletop BBQ lunch or Yakiniku in a nearby restaurant.  These meals are always so much fun. Delicious cuts of thin meat that just melts in the mouth, fish and vegetables cooked over hot coals set into the middle of the table.

Salads, cold  vegetables, and pickles  accompany the meat and fish., with a tasty rice side dish with a raw egg mixed in.

This was a great way to catch up on the latest news as we each went about dropping our food onto the wire mesh with our chopsticks, turning it and devouring each morsel, washed down with a glass of cool Japanese beer.

After lunch it was a quick walk to the station to take the train into Tokyo. Our destination was Hama-rikyu Gardens ( full name Hama-Rikyu Onshi-teien ) at Chuo, by the mouth of the Sumida River.

Hama-rikyu Gardens  in central Tokyo were originally the home of the Shogun Tokugawa family during the Edo period, until in the 17th century it became a garden and palace.  It was turned into a public garden in 1946. Surrounded by modern high rise buildings with Tokyo Tower in the distance these beautiful gardens are a real oasis in the city.

The flight with Air New Zealand was comfortable and we arrived on time.

We were a little worried about getting to our son’s new apartment from Narita airport. It had come as a surprise….though I am not sure why really….that it would be a 3 hour bus trip to Chofu Station, then a short taxi ride to their apartment. With a population of nearly 38 million Tokyo is spread out, as one would expect.

Fortunately we managed to get straight onto a bus to Chofu which took well over 3 hours as there was a bit of a traffic jam in the city. A brief taxi ride, and were soon inside, enjoying a drink and some of Tomoko's delicious cooking.

Our son and daughter in law live in a gated complex which has apartments for guests, so we had our own apartment which was very close to theirs and much like a motel unit, with great views of the city lights. This was definitely more comfortable than their last tiny apartment where we slept on a traditional futon we rolled out each night!

Having been to Tokyo before, there were not too many places we knew we wanted to see. We left the sightseeing plan for our son and daughter in law …..surprise us we said as we headed to our apartment for an early night.

Well.....surprise, surprise....here we are two months later, home after a wonderful trip but no postings to this blog. It is so disappointing that I cannot use my Ipad to work on  my websites. Unfortunately many sitebuilders are not Ipad compatible. 

Interesting too, that I did not see one computer for guests to use even in the hotels, but almost all our accommodation which was a mix of B&B's, hotels and apartments had free WiFi. Times have changed fast.

I will be creating our Yen for Travel  blog from emails I sent to myself as we travelled. Along the way I plan to include hints and tips from our experiences, and other useful information for those who like us, prefer to plan their own trips.

I worked out our itinerary and booked the whole trip online. While you do have to put in a lot of time and triple check everything before pushing that button that commits you.....you can save a lot of money by doing all the bookings yourself.

I usually book the first few weeks and the last night's accommodation before we leave . To allow for flexibility, we usually then book two or three nights ahead as we go. This has worked well the last couple of trips. You do not always know where you are going to be or how long you want in each place .

If it was a short trip - two to three weeks, I would probably book the whole trip. But two months is a long time to have everything totally booked. Interesting things crop up - festivals and events, or you may have met someone who made a great suggestion.....or even find you just want to relax in one place for a while.

It can get tiring and you may decide to spend more nights in fewer places as you get into the latter part of your trip. We certainly didn't cover as much as we originally planned to in Portugal, preferring to spend 3 or 4 nights in places. It also got much hotter than we expected in some places, which altered our destination choices at times.

Driving ourselves is usually our preferred means of transport if the destination is suitable. But we did perhaps create a fairly intensive itinerary in Morocco, with more driving than we realised. We moved on every night for 10 days. By the time we arrived in Madeira, Brian , who had also done a lot of driving in England, wanted a break.

We abandoned our plan to hire a car for the week in a timeshare and just used public transport and did a tour to the west of the island. Even in Portugal we realised we didn't need a car until we were leaving Oporto. We opted to take a train from Lisbon to Oporto and then hired a car which we returned to the airport at Lisbon.

Leaving yourself some leeway to change original plans is well worth it. We managed to save a weeks worth of car rental and the driver got to take a break!