Tokyo
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Weeks before we left for Japan, I made reservations at the Holiday Inn for our six nights in Tokyo at the end of our trip.  Like all Holiday Inns this had the advantage of "kids stay free".  This particular Holiday Inn also had a pool, which is always a consideration when I book a hotel for Tony.  In any case our accommodations in Tokyo were relatively inexpensive and quite adequate.  We had a eighth floor corner room with a nice view, which you see here.

I don't know what we would have thought of Japan if Tokyo had been our only destination on this trip; Tokyo was in some ways the least interesting part of our vacation.  It is not a bad place, but if you imagine a large metropolis made up of about a dozen non-descript large cities, none of them particularly interesting, you can imagine my overall impression of Tokyo.  

Our primary objective in Tokyo was to satisfy Tony's (and my) pent-up desire to go shopping.  Throughout our journey I had repeatedly told Tony that we could buy this or that thing or souvenir "when we get to Tokyo."  So the first thing we did, our first evening there, was to find our way to Akihabara, the so-called "electronics town" part of Tokyo, to scout prices on a Sega DreamCast.   We returned the next night to buy our DreamCast at T-Zone, a really nice store (one of many T-Zones in Tokyo).   After spending two weeks playing House of the Dead 2 in arcades all over Japan we naturally bought a complete system with two light guns.  Back at the Holiday Inn, Tony was content to spend the rest of trip playing this game in our room.

Our first full day in Tokyo we went to Ginza, the fashionable shopping area of Tokyo, and tried to follow the tour as described in Frommer's Walking Tours of Tokyo.  That first day in Tokyo the sun was out, and it was some of the hottest weather I have ever experienced.  I remember we could not stand still in the sun long enough to study our maps, and had to take shelter in an air-conditioned office building.  The first two souvenir shops recommended by the Frommer's book were rather chintzy and looked like they were going out of business.  We ended up playing spending time in a video arcade just to avoid the heat, then visited the Sony building, which was moderately interesting.  About that time I realized I had misplaced the guide book, and though we backtracked and looked for it, I was not too upset that I had lost it.  

My recollections of how we exactly spent each day in Tokyo are hazy to me now, but probably that first day we went to Matsuya Department store, which became my favorite, although there are many wonderful department stores in Tokyo, and in Ginza in particular.  I know we spent a lot of time exploring the Sony Building in Ginza and I am pleased to see you can do a virtual tour of online, even if it's mostly in Japanese.

At the Matsuya Department store in Ginza we found what appeared to be a special sale of Hagi ceramics, attended to by an older gentlemen.  I asked him "kore wa Hagi desu ka?" ("is this Hagi?") and he answered "Hai", and this lead to a long (by my standards) conversation about how pretty it was ("kiree desu nee") and how we had been to Hagi ("Hagi e ikimasita").  Tony of course found this experience, which for me was a magical moment, communicating in Japanese about ceramics to be boring.  We returned to this small exhibit of Hagi ceramics once or twice more while in Tokyo and I ended up bringing back 3 more boxed pieces, in addition to a tea set we had bought in Hagi.

Our favorite place to shop in all of Tokyo was Tokyu Hands in Shibuya, which is kind of like a cross between an IKEA and an Urban Outfitters.  Here we found lots of interesting gifts to bring home, like a Minnie-Mouse-brand toy paper shredder for Tony's Aunt.  We also found a tremendous selection of pens, including the first actual "gel pens" that we saw in Japan.

We went all over town, including shopping trips to find Japanese dolls and plastic food.  We spent an evening in Roppongi (where we saw an American family we had encountered twice two weeks earlier in Kyoto) and ate at the Hard Rock Cafe.  

One afternoon in Ginza we ate at the Sapporo Beer hall, and Tony liked it so much he insisted that we return there for our final dinner in Tokyo.  It was in some ways reminiscent of a German beer hall but unfortunately lacked live entertainment.  The first time we ate there we dropped a sausage on the floor, which was wet and filthy from the foot traffic off the street.  The food was so good, and so expensive in Tokyo, that I picked the sausage up from under the table, dusted it off, and ate it.  As far as I know I suffer no long-term adverse health effects from that sausage.

One afternoon in Tokyo we went to a special, shortened introduction to Kabuki, which I describe on a separate page in this website.