Sayonara Japan

We've had a wonderful time in Japan and wanted to say goodbye or "sayonara" with a few photos of the people/characters we came across along the way, that you haven't already seen.

Cool Japan

As we near the end of our time in Japan, we thought we'd show a few of the other pics we took of various cool stuff.
1st up is a sign in our hotel foyer; as you can see, we think they want us for a meeting in the lobby?!
The 2nd is of a "Love Hotel", which you may have heard of. They are often themed hotels that hire out rooms by the hour, for the busy Japanese to have a "rest". They are mostly automated, to avoid human contact and any embarassment the guest may have.
The 3rd photo we took as we were walking down the street. It is of a man collecting his car from a car park. The cars were being moved around on this rotating carousel-type machine, until it got to the man's - very cool.
The last photo not only reminded us of home, but we thought it was pretty cool to have Posh staring at her husband Becks, in his pants from on top of a building.

Obligatory Museam Visit

We couldn't visit a major world city and not take in one of the many museums on offer, but we could visit the coolest one with lots of robots and flashing lights.
As you saw from a previous post, we visited The Museum of Science and Emerging Technologies in Tokyo, so here are a few more pics for your perusal.
The building in the photo is not of the museum, but a neighbouring office tower in Tokyo Bay, which housed a TV network and looked much more futuristic.

Macau II

What's this? We thought we were in Japan, did we just stumble back to The Venetian in Macau? Where's the casino?
No, this is a shopping mall in Tokyo geared towards female shoppers called Venus Fort styled in the same manner as The Venetian.
We found another dog and adult clothing store, this one specialising in Labrador and Retriever stuff.
Thankfully, there was a car display there as well, including the "Back To The Future" car, so Andrew was catered for.

Gordon Ramsey at Conrad Hotel Tokyo

We saw the man himself in Sydney and we now had an opportunity to try the food, as we happened to be staying right next door to The Conrad Hotel and the Gordon Ramsey restaurant on the 28th floor.
We decided to make the meal our belated anniversary celebration, so got dressed up, Shivani more than Andrew and headed up to the 28th.
The food was French in style and delicious with meticulous attention to detail, not just in the food but service as well. For example; Shivani's pudding, an apple tarte tatin, had to be pre-ordered at the start of the meal, as it is made from scratch, including the pastry.
The view from the 28th, as the sun was setting over Tokyo was also very impressive, which hopefully you can tell from the photo.
They also brought out dessert with a special message, as we may have let it slip when we booked that it was our anniversary - naughty us!
Take at look at the before and after photos of our delicious dessert to wet your tastebuds.

The Robot Dance - As it should be done!

We took a visit to The Museum of Science and Emerging Tecnologies and bumped into Assimo, Honda's famous robot. Persevere with the short video, as it should work if your computer is good enough.

The Imperial Palace

The Imperial Palace stands in the middle of Tokyo and although you can't go inside the palace itself, you can walk round the beautiful gardens.

The final photo sums up Japan nicely; a mix of the modern and traditional.

Yoyogi-Koen

We went and visited one of the many parks in Tokyo; this one called: Yoyogi-Koen, which had a shrine in called: Meiji-Jingu.
We could bore you with the history that it was built in memory of Emporer Meiji and Empress Shoken, who under their rule ended Japan's long isolation from the outside world, but we won't.

Japanese Nandos

You've seen our blog posts with some of the different foods we've been eating and continue to eat. Some of it we do not even know what it is and feel that sometimes it's best not to ask, as it's probably fish, has fish sauce, or was once related to a fish!
We did however come across a yakitori restaurant that specialised in Chicken. Yakitori is basically, meat and vegetables grilled on sticks. If you enlarge the photo of the menu and have a look at the set menu of 10 sticks, you'll see what Andrew ordered.
We nicknamed this restaurant "Japanese Nandos", although there was no vege pita option on the menu.
For Lager/Beer fans have a look at all the different types of lager that Kirin produce and this isn't all of them. There are 3 main breweries in Japan, they are Sapporo, Asahi and Kirin - all of them make excellent beer - we can confirm this!!