Japan!

We flew into Narita airport, which involved flying over a large number of golf courses,

 before catching the express train into Shinjuku station

Shinjuku station is a short walk from our hotel (technically an underground tunnel connects the station to our hotel, but we couldn't find it except by starting at the hotel. To be fair, it does pass through several different train company areas of the station and two shopping malls before going past some government offices and arriving at the hotel).

This is what the not tunnel looks like

 The room was a fairly spartan affair,

 and the complimentary robes don't fit me.

 Japanese bathroom

 with wacky japanese toilet controls

Which are awesome by the way.
Soon I'll  be back home and reduced to wiping my own ass like some sort of peasant.
What is this, the middle ages?

Anyway, we had been concerned about potential language barrier issues (we shouldn't have been. It's easier for an english speaker to get around here than some western european cities) so we had arranged a number of package tour type things.

The first of which was a morning tour of Tokyo, starting at the Tokyo tower.

From which there are some marvelous views of the city, where you can see a number of landmarks, including the Roppongi hills observatory.

It's the tall structure in the middle.

A tour guide robot.

Straight down.

Next stop was the Imperial Palace, which while cool is a little disappointing as a tourist stop. You can't see most of it, on account of the emperor currently living there, and valuing his privacy or some such rubbish.

 After that we visited Sensoji shrine, a famous Buddist shrine

not the shrine, but part of the complex.

 We breathed in sacred smoke

 and participated in a cleansing ritual

It burns!

the actual shrine

 There was a set of smaller shrines next door, that I liked more

 mostly because the main shrine lacks a stream full of Koi running through it.

A statue of an actor pretending to be a samurai.
The area used to be a theatre district or something.

 In the afternoon we visited the Studio Ghibli museum

 It was cool, if a little small. Sadly no photography was allowed inside so you get to make do with this:

The next day was free until the evening so we went and did some shopping

Saw more robots

 Visited Akihibara

 which is like 6 blocks of manga/anime insanity

and girls dressed as maids/schoolgirls trying to entice you into a maid cafe. which since you aren't allowed to take pictures inside of, except of the food, I might cover in the what I ate post...

 

That evening we were due to meet a tour guide to do a short amount of sightseeing before having a traditional Japanese Sukiyaki meal.

We fought our way through a plaza full of plastic cats, stopped briefly at an open air bar (stuff I ate), before meeting our tour guide Také, who took us to the Roppongi hills observatory.

From which there are some marvelous views of the city, where you can see a number of landmarks, including the Tokyo tower.

It's the tall structure in the middle.

Mt Fuji is on the left side of the picture.

Of the three tour guides Také seemed the friendliest, and easily spoke the best English. He dropped us off at the restaurant and bid us good night.

The toilet controls from the restaurant that evening are so
complicated they are separately wall mounted.