Wednesday and Thursday

I traveled to Tokyo on Wednesday after a wonderful stay with the Guhas in Kobe. We celebrated the last evening with dinner in a Vietnamese place that was really good and yet another smaller restaurant with a great atmosphere.

I took the Shinkansen for the 2 hour 40 minute ride to Tokyo. Of course everything was dead on time!
After a little uncertainty I met up with John Hall and we headed back to his place near Shibuyu close to central Tokyo. John used to take a company minibus to the Sagami plant but with the cutbacks he now has to take the train and company bus and his commute goes up from about an hour to more like an hour and forty five minutes EACH WAY!
He is in the process of moving to Cat Underground in Tasmania Australia where his commute will be 15 minutes!! Needless to say he is looking forward to that.
John and Teresa have Kayleigh (8) and Ethan (5)
Thusday was spent just wandering in the local area and trying to navigate the subway system which is much more complex in terms of the different lines and the combination of JR and subway lines.
I came through one of the local parks and used a map at the entrance. I was initially confused as it looked like I was at the south end but I knew that was not the case. I looked closer at the map and saw that the orientation was not with North at the top as I expected but basically upside down. Aparantly map orientation is not consistent in Japan (my mistake I guess) but that is not consistent with their consistent and organized lives in general. Oh well another lesson learned

 

Note map orientation on the center right. North faces down!!

I eventually found my way back without the need to resort to a taxi and the address card that Teresa gave me that has the English on one side and the Japanese on the other plus a map. I life saver if needed!! Thanks Teresa.
John and I are going to the Tsukiji fish market, the largest in the world in the morning. We are planning an early start as most of the action is over by 10am.