Sayounara Tokyo

We were scheduled to leave Tokyo on Thursday evening after nearly five days spent exploring the city.  For some reason, Daniel and I both found ourselves still exhausted (perhaps it was because we stayed up late the night before watching the first episodes of Chuck and writing postcards!) but somehow we managed to check out of the hotel right at 11am.  We left our luggage behind and went out for one last adventure in the city.  We decided to visit the Hama Rikyu Gardens in the Ginza area of the city and catch a waterbus for a cruise down the Sumida River.  A subway ride later we found ourselves in unfamiliar territory.  Thankfully, Daniel can successfully orient and read a map, a skill that I am still working on:).  We walked for about ten minutes before reaching the garden and took a nice stroll through what we would refer to as a very large park.  There are indeed flowers, but sadly it is still a bit early to see many things in bloom.  Regardless, there were some nice pictures to be taken...

It seems that the city is awakening after a long winter as there were LOTS of people out at the park just taking in the sunshine!  I can just imagine how beautiful the garden, and the city, will be when the cherry blossoms are in full bloom!  

To get back to our hotel, we took the waterbus to Asakusa, the same area we visited on Wednesday with the historic temple.  The ride was obviously very relaxing, because I think I snoozed through a great deal of it...I guess that just goes to show you how tired I was!  We did see a couple of bridges and some cool buildings before disembarking.

Back at Ueno Station, we made one final stop at our favorite haunt--Starbucks!  Daniel and I both enjoyed a mango blended cream frappuccino for the walk back to our hotel.  Mmmmmm.....I hope these make an appearance on the menu in the States this summer!

We grabbed our luggage and found a cab to take us back to the station where we caught the Skyliner directly back to the airport.  Check-in was a little anxiety provoking as it seemed we made two mistakes, 1) Our suitcase was overweight by 0.6 kilos and 2) we didn't bring Daniel's flight information for his return flight from Seoul to the States so the agent hassled us about Dan not having the correct re-entry permissions.  Despite this, we both made it through security and spent the next couple of hours enjoying our last taste of tempura and noodle soup (or McDonald's in Daniel's case--he wanted to test out the hypothesis that the burgers taste different in Japan) and browsing in the numerous duty free shops.  The two hour flight back to Seoul was uneventful and we caught a cab back to Yonhi Dong, arriving a little after midnight.  While I headed straight to bed, Daniel stayed up to watch more Chuck:).  And so ends "Daniel and Colleen Take Tokyo"!  We've already started scheming up ideas for next spring vacation--Thailand is at the top of the list!