I Served Serial Joe a Slushie

I wrote up quick impressions while on our trip (these will be the quotes), to these I'll add the stuff we did.
Tokyo

My overall impression: "Tokyo was madness, just crazy. I mean, I liked all of the individual things we did, and the food, but overall it was just too much". That pretty much sums it up. There are just so many people, so much going on, everything's in such a rush, it's impossible to keep it all straight. Yet, as I said, I liked nearly everything we did while there. Except for the Tsukiji fish market. That was kind of pointless. I'm not sure why the guidebooks tell you to go there.

The first night was a good mix of activities. After collecting our railpasses from a nice old man (who, sadly, had "trainee" on his nametag) at the train station, and arriving at our ryokan, we went out almost next door for Okonimiyaki (spelling?): see picture. You basically cook your savoury pancakes at your table. Very neat, though the ones we later had in Kumamoto were better.

After that, we headed to nearby Senso-ji, a nearby famous temple (Buddhist?). It was gently raining, there was almost no-one around, and the temple and nearby pagoda looked beautiful. A good beginning to our trip.