Tokyo

The flight from HK was good, and my sore throat gave no problem, I was worried when you had to walk past a sensor to check if you had an elevated temperature. I got through OK, but my advice to everyone is take a couple of panadol before you get on the plane, so your temperature is normal should you have a problem.  It took two taxi's to get us to the hotel from the airport, and not only the drivers wearing white gloves, but the seats have lace fabric protectors, must use a lot of lace curtain like fabric.  We settled into the hotel and then off to Ginza, for some more shopping and tempted by sweets and strawberry cake.  No photos as my camera said 'zoom error'. We had Indian for dinner and back to the hotel.  Next day we had to return to Ginza, I had left my mastectomy boob wash in Hong Kong, and after being 'lost in Translation' the concierge found me a shop to get a new bottle.  Everyone was pleased as there was a 3 story toy shop opposite. I got my wash and then had to go to Big Camera at the other end of the strip to get my new camera, the others were still busy at the toy shop. Lucky they had the model I wanted at a ridiculously cheap price, We enjoyed walking the little side streets and then had Italian for dinner, much easier than trying to find vegetarian that doesn't have fish sauce.  Back at the hotel I set up my camera, the guide book was all Japanese, but the internet copy is in English. Next day I was ready to go but would I take photos in magic, beauty, panorama, sport, sparkle, punk or drawing mode or just plain auto.  the camera became an instant favourite with the boys and I have to fight to get it back.
Our first stop was Skytree and walking to the ticket box, we found Nana's green tea, saw an acrobatic show, and had to line up to get a time to go to the top

It would be two hours before we could go to the top,  and not wanting to do more shopping we left

 and took a taxi to the Edo Museum, that was a great decision as the main exhibit is panorama's of the Edo era, and my camera came in handy taking close ups of the some of the interesting people in the displays, there was an amazing show of wooden toys that work only using  wood, and we watched a toy man move along a row of poles and a giesha girl moving to serve tea, by no mechanical means, and then Carlo's attention was caught by a clown show and he sat mesmerized while we took turns at looking at other things. Then it was back into a taxi to go back to Skytree and join the long queue to get our tickets, what we had got before was only a ticket to say what time we could get our real tickets,

 It had been a fairly sunny day but it was nearly sunset when we started our lift ride, 350 metres up and then we took the lift to the 450 m level, not so many people and there was Mt Fuji, if you look hard, the view over Tokyo was amazing, and I would show more but Blogger only lets 5 photos on at a time.

 We went and had more Italian food and then made a visit to Nanas Green Tea, and what treats, parfaits of red beans or green tea, too large to eat in one helping, black sesame ice cream delights, green tea ice cream, it was hard to choose. Then we got a couple of souvenirs and it was off to to Shibuya station, by fast metro, the trains are amazing, once you learn the routes.  It was Sunday night and Shibuya was a mass of people, we found Haticho, if you have seen the movie or read the book its a site to visit. The dog waited 11 years for his master to come home from work, he had died at work and of course wasn't on the train as usual. We had a quick walk around the area and Alex had to rush off to buy another suitcase.  We got a JR train home two stop and that was the end of our Tokyo adventure.

Next day we were on the Shinkansen to Kyoto