Catching up... again.

Sitting on our 13-hour flight, I leaned over to ask Patty where she left off in the blog and got the response: “I didn’t write much about Tokyo at all.” So with that, I guess it is my job to fill you in on our last two days in Tokyo and just about wrap this baby up. Blogging is hard.

Jump back to Wednesday afternoon.

We arrived back in Tokyo after taking the bullet train from Kyoto. Having done the whole luggage on the subway thing many times this trip, we decided to pony up for a taxi to take us to our hotel this one last time. Traveling is great… but traveling with two heavy suitcases, a backpack, a laptop case, a purse, a suit bag, and a few small bags of snacks, all while trying to figure out the subway (see Patty’s prior post) and at the same time dig in your pockets for subway fare… ain’t.

Ahh… the sweet, sweet sight of the Celestine Hotel… we made it to the lobby of our final accommodations for our trip, and we couldn’t have chosen a finer place. Alas, a bed awaited us… not just any bed, but a great big, fluffy, comfy bed. If you think we’re exaggerating, go sleep on your kitchen floor for two nights and rest your head on a frying pan.

Anyway… with Internet access again, I finally had the chance to post our Kyoto pictures.

After a short nap, Patty and I checked our trusty Time Out Tokyo book and decided to head out to the lively night time neighborhoods of Shinjuku and Shibuya.

Having noticed a bit of rain outside, we dug out our pocket umbrellas and made our way. On the way out of the hotel, the wonderful reception staff at the Celestine offered us some umbrellas to use… Patty and I looked at each other, presented our own umbrellas and, in unison, exclaimed, “We’re from New York,” to which they got a great chuckle.

And so we braved the evening commuter rush – Shinjuku is the place you hear about where they actually employ people to stuff everyone into the subway cars. Something like 8 gazillion people pass through that station every day. It’s true. I read it somewhere.

Shinjuku is really bright and really busy.


**Man, I really wonder what this city’s electric bill is. There isn’t a building in sight without a neon sign, flashing lights, or a giant TV plastered on it.

Having no real dinner plans, we wandered around Shinjuku for a while in search of a Pizza Hut. While KFCs, Mickey Ds, and Wendy’s are everywhere, there wasn’t a single dine-in Pizza hut to be found in Tokyo (again, see Patty’s prior post).

Having walked by literally hundreds of restaurants and not making a decision on where to eat, and since the light drizzle started to get a little heavier, we ducked into a little Italian café for a quick bite and a bit of regrouping. After a bit of bruschetta and a beverage, we headed back out for some more photos and to search for a more suitable eating establishment. Having accomplished only the former – not to mention a brief walk through the seedier section of Shinjuku - we chose to move on to Shibuya.

**Shibuya at night appeared quite similar to Shinjuku… bright lights, lots of restaurants, a seedy section… and no damn Pizza Hut! Well, we did manage to have an Italian dinner at a restaurant in a large shopping plaza. Apparently this is pretty common in Tokyo, and so all of the restaurants were pretty full. After a short wait, we were finally eating.

Note: Somewhere around 7pm we realized we skipped lunch. It was probably around 9:30 by the time we finally ate.

After dinner, we were both thoroughly exhausted and so we trained it back to the hotel, collapsed into that wonderful bed and called it a night.

The last day and more photos coming soon!