Tokyo, Japan – March 6

imagine all these cherry trees in bloom

18 degrees, overcast

Today is the last full day of the cruise. The morning was spent packing and trying to spend the last of our ship-board credit – mission accomplished! I think my suitcases are less full than when I arrived.

The last day of any vacation no matter how long is always a bit sad, I find once I get on with packing that feeling goes away and I’m focused on getting on with getting home, or in this case getting to the next part of the trip. We are off the boat tomorrow and are in Tokyo for four days after that. 3 of the four days are with a tour and the last we are on our own – we decided to extend our stay by one day to be able to fly direct from Tokyo home to Calgary.

In the PM we head out on a tour first to the Tokyo National Museum. Not surprising here is the world’s largest collection of Japanese art. I know zero about Japanese art, so this was quite an education. We didn’t have as long as I’d have liked, but it was a great experience. 

We saw Kimonos, 12^th century swords, jade carvings and of course Buddha statues.

Then we walked through a large beautiful urban park lined with cherry trees, unfortunately we are about 2 weeks too early for the cherry blossoms – there were a few ‘early-bloomers’. This will really be something, the place is lined with huge cherry trees. 

Our destination at the end of the park was the Ameyoko Market. This is a pedestrian only street lined with tons of shops - clothing, cosmetics, electronics and lots of food. There were also a ton of golf shops. We bought some golf balls with Japanese writing and an orange golf glove for me – I haven’t ever seen an orange golf glove.