After a fitful night of half-sleep, we ventured out into the city late morning. We headed to Ginza on the subway, with plans to walk from there to the Imperial Palace after lunch. We found a small, cheap restaurant for lunch, where we succeeded in ordering by pointing to what the other people were eating. Delicious grilled mackerel with a miso soup, rice, and cold green tea. We then stopped into the Sony building and played with the toys in their showroom, before heading over to Mitsukoshi, a large department store in the vein of Harrods. The food halls (three levels!) were brilliant.

But on the whole, it felt like being in a large global city that just happened to be in Japan…not very dissimilar from London or Chicago or New York or Paris, apart from the greater difficulties in communications.

In the end, we did end up walking over to the Imperial Palace, but by the time we got there, we decided we were too tired to enjoy it properly, so we hopped on the subway and resolved to return tomorrow.