South Korea and I: The flight and the first days in Tokyo

It was a very, very long flight from Munich to Tokyo. The entertainment system was good. I watched "Wreck-It Ralph" and some other TV series. But after a few hours this gets really boring. Just sitting there, doing nothing. So I tried to sleep, but wasn't able to. Around me all the Japanese people were sound asleep - lucky them. It's in their genes, they can sleep whenever and wherever they like...

By the time we arrived in Tokyo I was really exhausted. It took us another two hours to reach the hotel (with several flights of stairs in between). Luckily, our room at the ryokan was ready so we could get some rest. It's a lovely small room (five tatami) with a small table, a mirror, a TV and some space to leave our luggage at. Furthermore we have our own bathroom with a bath tub and a toilet closet. Yes, our toilet is in a really really small room. But I'd rather call it closet than a room, because you don't have enough space to turn around. All in all it's clean, cheap, the staff is friendly so nothing to complain.

The first afternoon, after arriving in Tokyo, we tried to stay awake, so that we won't have problems with the jet lag. We strolled in Asakusa (where our hotel is), went to the supermarket, etc. The new Skytree can be seen from almost anywhere in Asakusa, that's really nice.

The next day I was ill. Probably because of the dry air inside of the airplane and because of the sick people, that were travelling with us. So we stayed inside the ryokan until the afternoon and all I did was sleep. Fortunately, I brought flu medicine with me from Germany. In the afternoon we visited Kappabashi-dori, this is Tokyo's Kitchen Town. There, you can buy anything, which is needed in a restaurant.

Yesterday I felt a lot better, but the weather was really bad. It was cold and we even had rain and snow in Tokyo. So we decided to head for Odaiba. We visited the Miraikan (the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation). This is a really great place. We watched a 3D show in the planetarium, saw a presentation of the robot Asimo, had an encounter with an artificial intelligence, etc. If you have the time, please visit the museum!
After that we went to some of the many shopping arcades on the island. Initially, we wanted to go to joypolis, but it had gotten really late and the fee was about 30€, so we decided to postpone this event. I think you can spend there a whole day if you like, so a few hours would have been very short.
Because of our lack of meat we decided to eat Shabu Shabu for dinner. We had a mixed set of Shabu Shabu soup and Kimuchi based soup, at the restaurant http://www.nabe-zo.com/english.html. Last time in Japan we already had Shabu Shabu there. It's a really good restaurant.

Today we went to Shinjuku and Shibuya. At the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building our bags were checked for security reasons. This was something new to me. When we arrived at the observation deck a volunteer offered to give us a short tour. She explained a lot of things to us and had good background information on the changes of the area starting from the old Edo (old name of Tokyo) days.

I know this was a bit short, I try to give more information the next time ^_~