Japan for the 12th Time
Going to Japan was never part of our travel plans for 2024. In fact, Madrid was our planned destination for Christmas and New Year. It was only late last summer when we changed our plans after getting so frustrated with Air Canada and its never ending aircraft changes for our trip. Three times they made plane changes and three times we had to contact customer service to rebook our preferred seats. By the time they contacted us for another aircraft change thereby changing our seat reservations as well, we literally blew our top and decided we needed to go somewhere else with a different airline. Who knew how many more times the airline was going to change the aircraft to be used for our trip to Madrid from San Francisco. It would not have mattered much but each time it was done, we had to contact the airline's customer service to rebook our seats and getting seat assignments with Air Canada was not entirely an easy experience. Although the airfare to Tokyo cost a bit more and we had to pay extra, it was all worth it in the end. We had an amazing time during our Christmas and New Year's vacation. We enjoyed ourselves so much that we think of returning as early as February 2025. You see, I have a week off next month. Anyway, here are some photos we took of our amazing 12th visit to Japan.
On our first full day in Tokyo, we decided to walk around the Nihonbashi area where our hotel, the Villa Fontaine Nihonbashi Hakozaki was located. We saw this shrine during our walk. As usual, although I am Catholic, I still went inside and prayed. Of course, I had to give thanks for the chance to visit Tokyo, yet again.
This was the main entry to the shrine we saw. Wish we knew its name.
This was one of the smaller altars surrounding the shrine. There were people cleaning the shrine grounds early that morning and so we didn't linger much. We didn't want to be in the way of the cleaners.
Another scene from the shrine
After the visit to the shrine, we went to Mitsukoshimae in Nihonbashi. It was exactly as I remembered it with this huge intricate sculpture in the middle of the department store. The sales associates here were pretty friendly, greeting us in every section we went to.
Later that morning, we made our away to Ginza. We were looking for the Suit Company store I used to shop in for outerwear and suits. The company that branded itself the Suit Company and Universal Language had closed and rebranded themselves as the Suit Square. They still maintained branches in Shibuya and Shinjuku too but at a much smaller size. This picture was taken on the food court level of the Uniqlo Building in Ginza.