Tokyo - Land Tour Day 2

August 6, 2015 -- Narita-Imperial Palace-Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building-Shinjuku-Meiji Jingu-Shin Yokohama

Narita--Richmond Hotel

Before leaving the hotel for our first day of this land tour, we enjoyed a decent buffet breakfast at the restaurant down on the first floor. Nice modern decor and good breakfast food.

About this tour. We added this land tour portion to the back-to-back Diamond Princess cruise to make the most out of our plane tickets flying over to Japan. We figured we should try to see as much as we could while we were there and joining a land tour sounded like a good idea with the group we had. Our travel agent found this budget tour operated by a Chinese travel agency in Japan. The cost was reasonable so we signed up. It was quoted as a 6-day tour, but actually just 4-full days since they counted the meeting up day as day 1, and the departing day as day 6. There were definitely pros and cons about this tour and I will explain what happened as we go along.

Basically all we needed for breakfast.

Picture of the magnetic signs on the door before we leave the room for the last time.

We met our travel companions in the lobby, all 14 of us, then boarded the comfortable bus that we would be traveling in for the next four days. Other than the eight of us, there was a family of four from France, and a couple from Australia. Our tour guide was from Mongolia who was new to this touring business.

Our bus leaving the Richmond Hotel. Next to the hotel is the Narita City Hall.

As we were driving along, I noticed that we were back at the Minato area that we are so familiar with.

Crossing the Rainbow Bridge.

A glimpse of Odaiba.

Imperial Palace

We came to the parking lot near the Imperial Palace.

Statue of Kusunoki Masashige at the Koukyo Gaien Garden near the parking lot. I could only get the back side of the statue because of the sun light.

The walk to Nijubashi.

Police on horses.

Nijubashi (二重橋) and the palace.

Hot, hot, day!

After the Imperial Palace, we came to the first of many shopping stops on this trip--duty-free store. It was pretty much a waste of time but I suppose our budget tour was subsidized by these stops and there was just no way to get around it. Fortunately, our tour guide was OK whether we shop or not.

Observation Deck--Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building

This is a popular tourist site and we had been here three times already. It is free admission but there could be a long line and security check is very tight. When the weather is clear, Mt. Fuji could be seen from here. A good place to have a panoramic view of Tokyo.

After the observation deck, we went down to a Chinese restaurant at the basement and had a terrible lunch. All they served was vegetables and tofu, with just one plate of steamed chicken which had pieces of sliced chicken. When we finished eating, we saw the display by the window and wondered why we didn't get those delicious looking food. I asked our tour guide if all our meals would be like that. He assured me that we will not be served the same thing again.

These were not expensive either. 

Wish we had that!

The beautiful bus and the nice tour guide.

Shinjuku

According to the itinerary we were suppose to be in Shinjuku in the evening. For some reason, they moved it up so we were in Shinjuku for a day-time visit. I am sure it would be much more interesting at night, especially this area of Kabukicho where we were taken that day.

Kind of reminded me of Ximendin in Taipei.

With lots of restaurants and shops.

Some restaurants we can come back to next time.

Another famous ramen place.

A 24-hour sushi restaurant

I thought our guide looks so much like Will, the little boy from Mongolia, on the "Little Couple".

Meiji Jingu

Meiji Jingu is a big Shinto shrine in Tokyo and a popular tourist attraction. One can spend many hours here and explore the grounds. 

Wine barrels

Otorii

Shrine gate leading to the main shrine

Main shrine

Ginza

Our last stop for the day was Ginza. We were dropped off in front of yet another duty-free shop where bus loads of tourists from China were shopping at. It was unbelievable! People were shopping with their wheeled luggage in hand. We quickly left the place and went our own ways. We found a Bic Camera store a few blocks away where ChC found the watch he wanted. Then I found a Christian Bookstore and spent some time in there before we met up with the group at the designated time.

The Wako Department store in the background with the big clock on top.

Look at all the tour buses lined up in front of the duty-free shop.

Shin Yokohama

After Ginza, we headed to the Yokohama direction. We would be spending the night in Shin Yokohama. It was kind of strange that they made that arrangements, driving two hours (including traffic jam) to Shin Yokohama and then back in Tokyo the next day again. It must have something to do with the hotel rates, I suppose.

Hotel for the night -- Laguna Suite in Shin Yokohama, just a couple of blocks from the Ramen Museum.

Cute hotel

We were aware of the fact that dinner would be on our own that evening. I was planning for a dinner in Shinjuku as it showed on the original itinerary. Now that we were in Shin Yokohama I did not have anything planned. We had to look for dinner. We walked to the JR station where we found many restaurants. 

We decided to eat at this restaurant.

We were attracted by this. The problem was, we don't read Japanese, so we did not realize that this poster just shows their take-out prices. Oh well...we had a nice sushi dinner, but it ended up a little expensive.

Good sushi but not as good as Midori.

When we were done eating, all the stores and restaurants at the train station were closing down (9:00PM). We took a nice stroll back to our hotel for the night.