Rainy first day in Tokyo

We landed in Tokyo in the rain, and it doesn't seem to want to let up at all. I looked online a bit and found a tour company that runs a bus tour, and booked that for tomorrow, hoping for better weather.

I forgot to mention this... While I was sitting at the desk in my hotel room researching tours online, the building shook. One big sudden movement, then it was still again. At first I thought I had imagined it, but the lamp over the desk is hung from the ceiling by a cable, and it started swinging back & forth. Either it was an earthquake, or the building got hit by a bus or train or something... The next day on the bus tour, the tour guide said that Japan experiences over 2,000 earthquakes a year, that's like 6 per day. I survived an earthquake!

The hotel concierge told me about a self-guided walking tour of shrines in the area, so I decided to strike out, with my trusty tiny travel umbrella. The first shrine was near the hotel, apparently a fertility shrine.

There were a number of people there, despite the constant rain, and I felt guilty about being a tourist in a place where people were sincerely praying for help. I paused to reflect on our own experience with infertility, then forged ahead.

Many of the photos didn't come out too good, because I was juggling the camera and umbrella. This was a shrine for wealth. I wish I had spent more time there, I may go back!


After successfully finding the 4th shrine, I got lost in all the little side roads. The map I had didn't have street names for all the little streets, and the street signs were all in Japanese anyway, so I was done. I headed for the nearest large street, and eventually spotted my hotel - the name is in English at the very top, 20+ stories up, above most of the other buildings in this area (whew!).

The hotel room is nice enough, two full-size beds, but it does have one outstanding feature, the toilet:

It has an electric seat warmer, an exhaust fan for odor control, and a bidet with electronic temperature and pressure controls for the water spray. There's an instruction panel on the wall next to the TP rolls in several languages, and warnings and cautions on the inside of the seat lid. The one thing I had trouble finding was the flush knob - it was nearly hidden by all the cables and tubes on the side of the tank!