Tokyo

Cia loves the toilets in Japan and would like to have one at home but heard that they cost about $4000.  Cia, could spend most of the day there.  You can make flushing noises by pressing a button if you are being a little loud.  The seats are heated and you have your choice of a bidet or bum spray upon completion.  I hope to blog the photo of the controls soon.  These facilities give whole new meaning to going to the reading room.  Oh right...this blog is supposed to be about Tokyo, not Toto.  
Tokyo is a massive city and a population that, if you include the suburbs, numbers 35-39 million people.  It is a concrete jungle with buildings of all shapes and sizes everywhere.  The apartments are miniscule.  As we sailed in at 7am the sky was crystal clear and Mount Fuji was in majestic, iconic form.  Unfortunately, those conditions did not persist as we began our excursion to the mountain and Hakone National Park.  As the ship docked, we were treated to a delightful performance by Japanese drummers.  The windows on our balcony vibrated.
One of the difficulties in Japan is exchanging money, the banks do not accept most foreign ATM cards so no luck in Tokyo.  We will try in Hiroshima, thank goodness for Darlene's Christmas present of leftover Yen.   
After going through immigration formalities ( fingerprints and mug shots), we boarded the motor coach and left Tokyo at 8:30 am.  We spent the next three hours in gridlock as there was a traffic accident on the highway.  It made Deerfoot at rush hour seem like a racetrack.  As we waited the clouds moved in on Mount Fuji and we did not see it in it's glory again.  However the wait was instructive as we learned that July and August are the months during which people generally climb Mt. Fuji, and even there it is gridlock  with 5000 people climbing each day and 300,000 climbing over the two months.  We also learned to count to 20 in Japanese and basic terms like thank you (arigatou) and yes (hai).  
When we finally arrived at the national park,  we took the Hakone rope way, a cable car, to Owakudani, the valley of great boiling, a desolate looking land that spews volcanic steam and fumes.  Stay out of the clouds as they reek of a very strong sulphur.  A popular purchase here is eggs that have been cooked in the hot spring waters and turn black.  It is said that those who eat the eggs will add 7 years to their lives. We passed on the extra years as we were told the eggs had a vile sulphur taste; but many people bought the eggs for 500 yen (about $6.) 
Next we travelled to Lake Ashi where we stopped for a lovely lunch at the Hotel Daihakone.  After lunch, the hotel manager and waiters lined up along the sidewalk to wave and bow to us as our bus departed.  A short drive brought us to the Hakone scenic cruise tour, where we boarded a boat dressed up as a three-masted galleon for the thirty-minute crossing to the opposite side of the lake.  The lake is said to be protected by a dragon with 9 heads.  We did not even see one of them.  The temperature when we were crossing the lake was a balmy 4 degrees with a cold, cold wind.  We met our bus at the shore and watched the scenery during the 3-hour drive back to Tokyo.  In the suburbs we saw numerous small patches of agricultural land, several acres in size, interspersed among multi-storey apartment buildings and factories and retail outlets and office buildings. As we got nearer Tokyo centre we were amazed by the road system which consisted of several layers of elevated roadways winding beneath the elevated highway on which we were traveling, when we were not stuck in gridlock.  Tokyo is an amazing city and it goes on and on.  Sailing away was a beautiful site.  As we passed beneath the rainbow bridge, the skyline nearly surrounded us.  Everywhere we looked was the red glow of aircraft warning lights atop the towers, bridges and hundreds of skyscrapers.

Cruise tip:  when  traveling in Japan in early March do not forget your mitts and toques and, regardless of when you might travel here, be sure to check out the toilets.