Chapter 13 Tokyo, Japan to Montreal, Canada. October 2019

Orchids on display in a small street in Tokyo.

We arrived at Tokyo's Narita airport after a short 2-hour flight out of Vladivostok. It was a touching moment of sadness and relief as we lifted off Russian soil for the last time. Having spent several weeks there we had grown accustomed to the place. At the same time, both of us were looking forward to getting home.

Narita airport is a result of Japanese planning and maintenance.  It is a huge airport but it is not difficult to navigate. I had decided to store our 2 big bags in the left luggage on the 4th floor of Terminal 1 which is where we will check into Delta airlines for our flight to Vancouver through Portland.  This flight was paid for with air miles so it is a rather long and complicated flight. But it is free so one takes that into account. As we were only going to be in Tokyo for 3 days, it was not necessary to schelp our big bags to town.

We decided to take the Narita Express (NEX) as a taxi from Narita to Tokyo can cost up to US$300!  The train costs US$ 40 per person return and is an easy 45-minute ride to Tokyo central station.  From there we got a taxi to our hotel. The drop charge or start-up charge for a taxi in Tokyo is
US$ 4.20.  After weeks in Russia, we are suffering sticker shock at prices here. 

We had booked into the APA Asakusa-Tarawachi hotel.  I had not paid attention to the description of the hotel rooms until we got there and noticed that we should expect "snug" rooms. Well, snug they are. 2 by 3 meters. Just wide enough to fit a double bed with no room to get off the bed on the window side nor at the end. Luckily we have only small hand luggage as there is no spare space in this room.  It is like a small cabin on a ship. We will tough it out.

Our first evening, we had some really good sushi at a typical sushi restaurant where one sits at the bar and the chef prepares food as one orders it.  This was a newer or modernized place but the same idea as the classic sushi bar.  The price was healthy as each sushi piece costs US$ 4.

Photos taken in Tokyo can be seen at:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/FbL4MfKRswzLv19L6

The next day we headed to the SKY TREE which is a tower for viewing Tokyo. We walked several blocks to the metro station and then boarded the Asakusa line for 2 stops to the base of this huge tower which is very popular. In fact, it so popular that the line up to buy same-day tickets to go up to the observation deck stretched back by the hundreds.  Luckily, I had bought tickets online and we needed only to present ourselves at a special desk to pick up our tickets and go up on the high-speed elevator to 350 meters height.  It was a beautiful warm and clear day and the city of Tokyo could be seen in all directions.  It was so clear one could make out Mount Fuji in the distance.  It is 70 miles from Tokyo.

From the tower, we decided to visit the imperial palace grounds.  We made our way to the metro which was a 20-minute walk away from the tower and discovered that the Tokyo metro has a huge number of stairways up and down which one needs to climb.  After figuring out what ticket was needed, we paid our money into a machine and boarded the train to the station where we would have to transfer from the red to the blue line.  It takes a bit of practice and attention to be able to navigate this system but we did make it to our destination.  What is pleasing here in Tokyo is that there are a lot more people who understand English than in Russia.  All of the people who deal with tourists speak good English. In the metro system, they have girls posted at most stations who can answer questions and direct one to the right trains.

The Imperial Gardens are part of the Imperial Palace and have been open to the public since 1968.  The grounds are huge, some 210 hectares or 400 acres which are right in the middle of Tokyo.  However, we found that much of the grounds are off-limits which made climbing up a fairly steep hill a waste of time as one then finds that the area is closed.  However, the moats and walls of this palace are impressive.  The stone walls of the moat are some 30 meters high made of huge stones which reminded us of the walls one finds in Cusco, Peru.  The huge stones are carved so precisely that they are not held together by any cement, only their own weight.  Of course, as this is Japan, the gardens are tended with great care and everything seems to be cut and cleaned with much detail.

By this time we were both so tired that we hailed a taxi back to the hotel.  Taxis are so clean and well maintained that they put to shame taxis in any other city.  They have a small version of the London taxi which is very comfortable. Our taxi driver today was a lady and all the seats had doilies on the top.  Newspapers were provided and a TV was playing in the headrest of the front seat. It even had buttons one could switch on to heat the seat.  On top of that, this was an electric car that was almost totally silent.  Classy cars!

On our last day in Tokyo, I had booked tickets on the hop on-hop off bus.  This does Tokyo in two loops and each takes about 1.5 hours. We boarded the red line at a hotel near ours and rode to the Tokyo station stop where the red and blue lines meet.  We did the blue line tour which took us into the huge redeveloped harbor area across the Rainbow bridge. This is a very large tract of land with office buildings, hotels and amusement parks across from downtown Tokyo.  We then got off at the Mitsubishi head office building to get a sandwich at the local Starbucks. We completed the tour on the red line and jumped out near our hotel.  It is a great deal which only costs US$7 and one can see as much as one wants by jumping off and on at the 20 different stops around the city. It was a nice day with sunny periods. This is such an impressively well-maintained city. Almost too clean for my tastes

There is a huge hurricane heading for Tokyo and is expected to hit Tokyo late Saturday. Luckily we are booked out for Friday afternoon so we should just squeak out in time. It will be a long day as our itinerary takes us from Tokyo to Portland, Oregon, to Seattle and finally to Vancouver.  I expect we will be somewhat groggy by the time we get to my sister's house on the same Friday as we left from Tokyo...

We lifted off from Tokyo Narita on time and to the relief of all aboard as the airport was scheduled to be closed the next day. In fact, this same flight was canceled the day after we left. As predicted the hurricane Hagabis hit Japan hard and almost 100 persons are missing. That was too close for comfort.

We landed in Portland after a smooth flight but with very little sleep. After catching flights to Seattle and then on to Vancouver, we arrived totally racked after 36 hours without sleep.  We spent a nice week-end at my sister's house and celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving with my sister and some of her children and cousins. As always at Sis's, things were simple and comfortable. Monique and I caught up on our sleep and felt rested by Monday morning.

The autumn view from our apartment in Montreal which was awaiting us
on our return from our long voyage.

On Monday, we left by taxi to the airport at 8 am.  As it was a holiday in Vancouver, we were at the airport in 20 minutes.  After a 5 hour flight, we were back in Montreal having completed our around the world trip in 24 days.  It was good to be home again.  We got home to see the beautiful colors of Autumn from our apartment.