A day in Shinjuku

We were planning to visit the Imperial Palace but realised just in time that like the museums it's also closed on Mondays so we quickly changed plans and decided to spend the day in Shinjuku. For once we started off a bit early and got to Shinagawa Station just in time to witness rush hour. Very impressive!! We've never seen anything like it so far. It's incredible though how despite the crowds and chaos the Japanese still manage to remain calm and civilised. People don't push and they still queue to get onto the trains. Once they're in the metro, in rush hour everyone stands in a line facing the windows of the train. Almost mechanical!!!

West Shinjuku is where you find most of Tokyo's skyscrapers - all of them offices. We entered the Metropolitan Government building and went up to the 45th floor where we could see fantastic views of the city.

Then we took a walk around the West part to see all the skyscrapers... very impressive. By then it was lunch time so many people were out of the office for lunch. I personally have never been anywhere like this before, I've never seen so many smartly dressed people!!! And the women are obsessed with handbags... I have never seen so many LV and Chanel bags in my entire life!!!

Afterwards we walked around East Shinjuku

where we visited the Hanazono Shrine. The East part of Shinjuku is mainly popular for evening entertainment but there are also some really nice department stores worth visiting. So then we spent the rest of the afternoon going around Isetan Department store - really beautiful. Here is a glimpse. They also have a fantastic food hall - where you can buy anything from Japanese food to French patisserie, Belgian chocolates and Italian pasta. Forget Harrod's Food Halls - this is better!!! Obviously Ivan went mad!!! Eventually I managed to drag him out of there and we spent some time shopping on the other floors.

Our evening was a bit of a disaster... we tried going to Tokyo Bay but got off on the wrong stop and ended up in a place that looked a bit like Marsa!!! So eventually we got off at the right station but the restaurants seemed like tourist traps... and some of them even had machines outside to order food - like buying a drink!!! So we decided to return to the hotel as there is a good sushi place nearby, but till we got back it was 10.30pm and they were closed. So our last resort was our hotel, but luckily the food was very good.