The travel had me sound asleep last night at 7:30pm local time. I woke up completely refreshed at about 11:30pm, but managed to go back to sleep several times before finally getting out of bed at 4:00am local. Tonight, we’re going to try to make it to 9:00. As I write this, it’s nearly 8:00pm, so 9:00 doesn’t look too challenging.
A few quick observations after one day out and about:
- There are convenience stores everywhere. Surprisingly, the most prominent is 7 Eleven.
- There is no on-street parking in Tokyo. You pay for parking every place you go. In fact, my sister told me that you need to have validation of a parking place before you can buy a car.
- When someone tells you it’s rainy season in Tokyo, believe them. It’s been overcast and humid since we arrived and raining about 50% of the time.
- Tokyo has McDonald’s, Denny’s, Red Lobster, Starbucks, Wendy’s, Domino’s, and KFC, but no Taco Bell. Sounds like an opportunity.
Today, we took advantage of our early rise to go to the Tsukiji Fish Market. We saw all sort of fish, shellfish and other seafood, including some incredibly large tuna that had been flash frozen on the ship. Thanks to my brother-in-law, I ate a shrimp right out of the ice (see below) in which it was displayed for purchase.
After a rest back at my sister’s, we had lunch at a noodle restaurant. Orders were done via a vending machine, which issued a ticket that you handed to a woman 
standing up near the kitchen. All the money is in the machine. I had some tempura and noodle soup, which was very good.
Later, we took the train to the center of town and walked around the Imperial Palace grounds for a bit. These grounds come complete with moat, as they’ve been around since the 17th century. We walked on the ruins of a tower destroyed in 1657. As you see in the picture at right, taken from the ruins of the tower, the palace grounds are right in the middle of modern Tokyo,
From there, we took the subway down to the largest Pokemon store in Tokyo. My son was huge into Pokemon about 8 
years ago, but this time around the toys only carried excitement for my 7 year-old nephew. Pikachu was certainly everywhere, as you can see to the left.
Dinner was chicken yakitori from a neighborhood place. I had the basic chicken and decided not to join my brother-in-law with his chicken livers and hearts.
Tomorrow, we’ll probably still get up early. We are likely to go to an international Toy Convention to see what’s there.
