The Emperor's Birthday
A night of anaesthetised unconsciousness alternating with wide awake spells where I hatched projects to design our new house exactly like the hotel we are in. Up early, and Lorraine brought me tea made of roasted tea leaves with a delicious nutty taste. Got ready in haste, and rushed downstairs to an irate tour company woman. We were all late to join the bus tour, and so they drove off, but we hopped in a cab, lurked in a nearby hotel's lobby and caught the bus there instead. This was a perfect start to the holiday. The bus took us to the Tokyo Tower , modelled on the Eiffel Tower, but larger being 333 metres tall and painted orange and white. All good fun, and enjoyably cheesy "Welcome to Tokyo's Navel". It had a large Christmas tree outside, with lots of festively decorated plastic Towers. The Christmas trees here all seem to have their own music being piped in around them. There is lots of evidence of Christmas here. Romy said that they treat the day as somethin...