A postcard from Tokyo

We have had a brilliant four days here, and as we haven't been able to find postcards, here is a virtual one for you all.  

On our first night we got to our hotel quite late and struggled to find somewhere to eat as it was a national New Year holiday. We went to a chicken restaurant where you had to order your food from a machine and then give the receipt to the server. It was all in Japanese but, as we have found with everything in Japan, there were pictures to help you decide! 

We spent our first day wandering round the main Tokyo station area and went to see the Imperial Palace, and explored Ginza, which has loads of department stores and a giant Muji with a cafe (a highlight for me!).  

On Sunday we went to the Tokyo National Museum which is in a part of the city called Ueno. It was full of amazing art from across Asia and was made up of some lovely buildings. We then explored Shinjuku and Shibuya, a couple of major shopping districts full of people and bright lights!  At the moment, the main streets in each prefecture are all covered in lights to celebrate the New Year. 

Yesterday we went to FujiQ Highland, a theme park next to Mount Fuji. The weather was incredible, really sunny although it was absolutely freezing waiting at front of the queue at the top of the rides! It has a couple of world record breaking roller coasters which were really good. Randomly, it also has a section called Thomas Land, which has life size engines, shops and a station. No fat controller though...

Today we went to the Tsukiji Fish Market first thing. It was incredible; so much fish to look at and everywhere you looked there was motorbikes or little wagons zooming about delivering. 

Afterwards, we took the Skybus to Odaiba, a man-made island where they are going to be building the Olympic park for 2020 but at the moment they have lots of indoor theme parks and shopping centres.  We went on this big wheel, and had great views of the city.

We've eaten some amazing food.  We have particularly enjoyed restaurants where you can point at the food that you want as they often have pictures or models of it. We've also managed to fit in a few craft beer bars - both were tiny but had some tasty Japanese beers to try. Today we went to a sushi bar where you ordered the food using a touch screen monitor and it came out on a rail that ran through the restaurant and stopped in front of you. 

Everything is so colourful here, and the people are so friendly and helpful.  It's busy, but it doesn't feel like everyone is in your way. 

Also, the Japanese have an anthropomorphic obsession and put a face on everything. Here are some of my favourites:

Another thing we have noticed is that lots of Japanese people wear surgical masks in public places, apparently this is because either they are ill and don't want to pass on their illness or that there's a bug going round they don't want to catch. You can even buy branded Hello Kitty masks! There is also a complete lack of American cars. Everyone drives Japanese, or if you're well off, an up market European make (although we have seen one old mini). Also all the cars are spotlessly clean.

It wouldn't be like a postcard if I didn't mention the weather. It's been gloriously sunny the whole time that we've been here - we've both caught the sun on our faces although we have had to wrap up warm. We're getting the bullet train to Kyoto today.