Well today was a little laid back for us, it always is on the last day. Lorraine always get anxious about the luggage limits ( more on that later), and she detests hanging around preferring to just get under way for home. With a 19:55 flight, that was never going to be a good day for her.
I had a toss and turn night so I got up to meander for some early morning photos, except that Tokyo is so well lit up that effects are very hard to come by without local knowledge. I only did a few shots at the garden pathway behind the hotel and the shrine we could see. I got lucky on that one, a man turned up to pray so some long shutter shots on interval timing had me getting a ghostly image climbing the stairs, stopping to pray and then exit stage left. I made a couple of GIFs using the interval shots for both locations.
I also took a picture of the bath room simply because it just felt really weird. All our rooms had tubs and you usually shower standing on the tub. Not Citadines Central, with their setup you stand next to the tub and shower on the outside. There is floor to ceiling glass so no splashing on the rest of the room and even better no shower curtain, but it is surreal and goes against every instinct you have to stand in the tub.
So first order of the day was to pack the bags and ensure we could fit everything. We could as we did bring one empty small carry on for souvenirs with a back pack inside it. Then weight was the issue to consider. Lorraine was sure the medium suitcase with our clothing and some non-delicate souvenirs would be over. I won that bet at 7kgs under the max of 32kgs. The souvenirs however were over the 7kgs limits by 2kgs, she'll be right mate. I knew my bags were over without even weighing them, you just need to act like they are not heavy, and of course me being mobility disabled, I always look like I am struggling just to stand up, let alone balance a back pack and push a small suitcase. But more about the luggage in the next blog entry.
Second order of business was to book our airport rail transfer. So we wandered up to Shinjuku station to the JR office, two tickets, one way, reserved seats (no charge for the reservation of seats) all up cost around $50 for both of us. Not bad really considering it is a 90 minute train ride and the estimate for the taxi is about $400 and is only 20 minutes quicker and subject to traffic issues.
So then we just strolled back to the hotel, packed away the additional souvenirs we just bought and relaxed until checkout at 11am. We left the baggage at the hotel for later pickup to do some more wandering and get some lunch. We found this place which required walking down some narrow steep stairs, one at a time for me, only to be told full on that level go down to the next level, so yes we are in basement 2 or B2F as they refer to it. We take a table to find it is all remote control ordering. Pick up the tablet, scan through the pictures, select your meals and drinks and 5 minutes later there they are. Another brilliant cubby hole in the wall meal.
More wandering until we decided to just head back to the hotel lobby for some more rest.
Finally tired of waiting we headed off, we decided to try the underground shopping centre route. The logic was a small dose of pain getting the suitcases down the steps for the pleasure of rolling them most of the way along smooth shopping centre floors rather than struggling on street pavements with driving and road crossing edges etc etc.
Through the underground shopping complex to the combined underground above ground shopping I forgot the level change so even though we got off at 1F, that was B2F of the Train station, so up another escalator. They have escalators everywhere, its rare to find a set of steps without an escalator next to it. If its going the wrong way, find the next set of stairs and the escalator is most likely going your way this time. Cross the road and we're there.
Tickets out, through the gate, take an elevator down to the platform to be bombarded with a wind that would freeze the balls of a brass monkey. Lucky for us there was a waiting room with empty seats. We hung around for around 55minutes waiting for our train. Got on, took our seats, I fell asleep, Lorraine stared off into the farmland. An uneventful train ride. Next blog entry will tell our travel story.
Photo
2018-04-07 - Tokyo Pre-Dawn Meander
2018-04-06 - Tokyo Wanderings III
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