Following our late retirement to bed at 02:00 this morning, we slept undisturbed until noon, then made a plan on how to spend our time in Tokyo for the next four days.
As we were getting ready to go out there was a faint knocking on the door and I ushered naked Ian into the bathroom while I opened the door to a cleaning lady. She waved the 'make my room' sign at me whilst speaking, to me, unfathomable Japanese. I could only deduce that she was quite keen to clean the room. We had only been there one night, we are not that dirty! I had placed the 'do not disturb' sign on the door handle last night so we could catch up on some sleep. I pointed at my watch and demonstrated 30 minutes, indicating that she could clean the room in half an hour once we had gone out but she didn't understand and was quite insistent on cleaning the room now. It was a difficult situation. I knew what she wanted but couldn't communicate to her that she could do what she wanted very shortly. I told her I would contact reception, I could hardly let her clean the room while Ian was stuck in the bathroom, and I was a bit annoyed that 'do not disturb' is ignored. Reception didn't really understand the situation either but I managed to get them to call the cleaner and instruct her to come back in 30 minutes. She had already let the door close so Ian and I finished getting ready, conscious that she might be stood waiting outside.
When we left the room the cleaner was in the process of cleaning at least four other rooms and I wondered what her excitement was all about.
As we stepped outside onto the path for Ian to take his GPS position I looked up and noticed that the cleaner was already in our room. Then the rain drops began to spit on us and I daren't go back to the room to retrieve our rain jackets and face the cleaning lady again!
We caught the subway from Ikebukuro to Tokyo station. The subway is very good in Tokyo. There is obviously plenty of money available to fund public transport systems.
As we emerged from the subway the light shower began to pick up as we walked to the Imperial Palace plaza. Having spotted the giant koi carp in the Kikyo moat, we trotted off to look at the Nijubashi bridge by the Sakuradamon gate. I had already become entranced by the fabulous leaning pines. It rained on and off as we continued to the East Garden, the former Edo Castle. The huge stone walls were wonderful and we spent about an hour in the grounds. I found many interesting flowers and new buds blooming as spring had arrived. The blossoms are blossoming and look very pretty. There was a little bit of excitement at one point as eight or so security guards appeared, some in a car, other on bicycles, and scrambled up the 'keep out' slope behind which was the real Imperial Palace, behind the Hasuike moat, both of which are out of sight from the general public.
Beyond the East Garden we strolled up to the Budokan Hall, which we guessed was hosting some wrestling matches, and bypassed the Science and Technology Museum which was soon due to close. The rain had started to fall quite heavily. We walked around the perimeter of the Fukiage Palace dodging the joggers and after passing over the Hanzo moat we reached the British Embassy building. We were heading for Ichigaya subway station which we found after a brief stint in a cafe and a late, late lunch, followed by a stroll through the suburbs. We took a subway to Roppongi-Itchome with a view to seeing the SoHo district by night and to find some dinner. After spending some minutes browsing the bookshop we made it outside and straight back in again to avoid the rain. We had another hot drink and a very nice toffee cookie before repeating the walk to the exit and then the return walk to the subway again. The rain was quite persistent and very annoying to us without rain jackets or umbrellas so I called the shots for us to go back to the hotel and revisit Roppongi another evening.
When we reached Ikebukuro it was still raining and we emerged from the subway the wrong side of the ten track railway so wandered off in search of dinner. We had been without crowds all day until we returned to Ikebukuro. Somehow we ended up in the hood and quickly left as soon as we arrived. We wandered for an age, this way and that, and continuously found the same situation. English headings or restaurant names but the entire menu in Japanese text only. It's a tease! And very Korean! Even McDonalds' menu was only in Japanese and the pictures, what little there were, were not familiar to us either. About to turn around and retreat we stumbled across a 'spicy restaurant' and found English translations in the menu. At last we had found our dinner! A curry!
Ian led the way back to the hotel, I was well and truly lost, although I did manage to find us a dry route through the subway, and then we made us of another 90 minutes free internet usage.
Ian was under the false impression that most Japanese people have a very good understanding of English but unfortunately we feel as alien in Japan as we did in South Korea and are finding it quite hard work. The subway is not particularly tourist friendly but more irritating to us is our lack of ability to find food. When we ask for help when checking for prices of services we hit brick walls. Perhaps it's time we invested in a dictionary...
After searching online it turns out that the woman I sat next to on the flight from Seoul yesterday is indeed a professional badminton player, which is interesting.
Copyright 2003 Helen Fuller. All rights reserved.