Introduction to Japan

We woke up at about 5am this morning, thanks to the jet lag. We had anticipated this and had a plan ready- we were going to check out the fish market! This is supposed to be a really cool area where all of the fishermen bring their catch to sell to restaurants etc. only we don't actually know because we didn't get to see it. We were off of the train by 6am and rather than taking a subway one stop, we decided to walk it. This was a terrible decision! If you can't read the street signs and aren't really sure where you're going, don't try to walk! After about an hour of wondering around, we eventually came across a subway entrance and happily boarded the subway. Two minutes later, we were there.

As were were leaving the subway, we noticed a sign that said "Fish Market Closed Today". Our guide book hadn't said anything about this and since we really wanted to see the market, we denied the possibility that this could be true and went up to the market area. Unfortunately, all that we found were a few tourists wondering around! Lame!

We got lost AGAIN trying to take an alternate route back to the subway but we did eventually get back on and made our way over to the Imperial Palace. You can't actually go into the palace but you can wonder around the grounds which are lovely. The Japanese have also come up with a great idea to combat the heat- cooling rooms. Scattered around the park were air conditioned rooms that you could hang out in and recover from the heat. These were a lifesaver! They made the entire experience so much more pleasant.

After the palace, we went over to one of the shrines here. The story is that a fishermen was fishing one day when he hooked something strange. It turned out to be a little statue which everyone deemed a holy object. The statue hasn't been moved since that day and now there is a big temple built up around it so that people have a place to go to pray. There is also quite a lot of good shopping that has sprung up around the temple as well as some good restaurants. We had lunch here which was delicious- I had some kind of battered shrimp.

The jet lag was catching up with us by then so we went back to the hotel to crash.