Yes, I meant to start a day with a swim and compare the Palace to the Prince and the Ritz but I was exhausted and knew we had a busy day ahead of us. So instead we started with a high quality luxury hotel breakfast buffet. It had been a while and we had no choice but to overdo it! I had a perfectly cooked eggs benedict with some pastries all washed down with a never-ending supply of coffee and juice. The quality was as good as expected.
The plan for the morning was to see the spectacle of Fukagawa Fudo-do with its mirror room and fire ritual. It was a short hop on the Tozai Line from Otemachi to Monzen-nakacho and from there just a short walk past some interesting antique shops or perhaps junk stores (we couldn't tell) to the temple.
As we approached the gates we heard the temple before we saw it and hurried in to catch the end of the fire ritual. Wow, they really go for it and it's quite the spectacle of noise with each beat of the drums shaking your insides (we must have missed the bulk of the fire).
After some exploring we found the mirrored corridor filled with tiny little buddha statues on a mirrored background. It was an interesting experience but not anywhere near as exciting as our guidebook suggested.
We then spotted another temple down the road and headed off to explore. The grounds were taken up by a huge flea market, we really enjoyed ourselves and had a great walk around picking up some sake cups and bottles. I'm sure we overpaid but we had gotten some nice souvenirs and had a great time in the process. We then headed back to the hotel for lunch.
Checkout was easy enough and the hotel kept hold of our cases for the rest of the day. We were then escorted up to the hotel's Michelin starred Amber Fort restaurant where we'd booked a table for lunch. The place was a bit of a maze to find and we were glad to have someone walk us up. No expense had been spared with the setting and we were quickly acknowledged by the staff with our reservation was confirmed. There was a short wait whilst a party was leaving and we were given a nice spot by the windows with views outside.
As alluded to earlier in the TR we'd not spent all that we'd budgeted for and decided to have a bit of a blowout lunch going for the Amethyst Menu at around £70 per person including service but excluding drinks (and this was by no means the most expensive lunch menu on offer). In a change from the usual I went with a glass of white wine. Ms Spymon stuck to ginger ale. As a reminder, you pay as much for the quality of the ingredients in Japan as for the volume of food. The presentation, quality and taste of all our courses were up there with anything I'd ever eaten. I would also say this is probably the most refined and tastiest Chinese food I have ever tasted. Unfortunately there were a couple of things that got in the way. It was very expensive, the portion of duck was not as generous as we would have liked and the server did not explain the different ways we could have the duck - the fact that it was the best crispy duck roll we'd ever had only added to the disappointment. The service did not feel overly polished, the courses did not come in the order they were printed on the menu and half the courses did not come with a full explanation.
Our courses were: Selected appetisers (the pork belly and chicken were amazing), Beijing Duck, Dim sum (some of the best we've ever had), Hot and Sour soup with Abalone, Pork with BBQ sauce, Vegetables (broccoli, good to help cleanse the palate), some rather excellent fried rice (I could get hooked on premium fried rice very easily) and a coconut milk based dessert.
At half the price we would have forgiven all of these complaints. In many ways we finished the trip as we started it food wise with a delicious but expensive meal. As is the custom we finished with green tea.
As was becoming the norm after another long meal it was getting late and we decided to change our plans. It was a glorious afternoon and rather than spend it inside a museum we decided to do the historic Tokyo walk we meant to do earlier in our trip which we postponed due to rain. We headed off towards Ueno Park and began our walk through the Yanesen area of Tokyo.
For me, any good big city should be full of contrasts and surprises. On show that afternoon were low rise buildings, quiet streets, tourist free temples and shrines.
The walking route saved the best to last and as the sun was setting we enjoyed the calm of the Yanaka-reien cemetary and the climb down through Yuyake Dandan and Yanaka Ginza, too bad we didn't have the time to really take in that sunset or stop for a beer.
Our last stop of the trip was supposed to be the Mori Art Museum in Roppongi. We both like art and it was open late. However, at this point we were so far behind schedule by the time we arrived in Roppongi that we'd given up on the museum. On the plus side we got a great view of the Tokyo Tower, some great people watching and finished off our trip with the most romantic stroll and a huge desire to return to Japan. We saw so much and yet so little during our two weeks of travels.
We got the metro back to the hotel and picked up our bags, it was finally time to head home and face the world.