Monday – March 23, 2026 – Tokyo
Today’s featured photo is of a Godzilla on the roof of a building in Tokyo. You probably wouldn’t expect to see a photo of Godzilla when talking about Tokyo. But face it – is there any other being/animal you would associate with Tokyo? And as far as being a protector, Godzilla has protected Japan from some pretty bad dudes – like the 3-headed King Ghidorah! Didn’t find any of those on the roof tops so I assume Godzilla took care of them before our arrival in Tokyo.
We had an “included” excursion in Tokyo (i.e., one that came with the cruise). We opted to trade that in for another excursion and spend our first day on a private tour with Carl, Yvonne and a friend of theirs named Dorothy. The tour we booked is a flat rate for up to 6 people and the highlight is a close view of Mt. Fuji. We agreed to meet the person providing the tour at a Hilton hotel near the dock at 9:00 am. As we left the ship the weather was not great – light rain. We walked the roughly 1 mile to the Hilton and waited for our driver – Saim. He had been in contact with Carl via text to let us know when he would arrive at the hotel. He also said we may not be able to drive to Mt. Fuji because there was a traffic accident that was tying up traffic.
Saim arrived at 9:30 in a Toyota van I had not heard of – a Vellfire. Once we were all in the vehicle Saim explained that we could customize our tour by picking the points of interest we wanted to see. He explained that if we chose to go to Mt. Fuji we could be stopped due to the traffic accident and essentially waste the time going to and from that area. He gave us some options and Yvonne had one place she really wanted to see – the busiest pedestrian intersection in the world. We also wanted to see the Godzilla in today’s featured photo and the miniature Statue of Liberty near our ship. Finally, we wanted to do some shopping. Saim suggested the Imperial Palace as a place to add. We agreed on these choices and headed to begin with some shopping.
When we arrived at a shopping area it was still spitting rain so there were many umbrellas up. The area to which Saim brought us had cherry blossoms that were in bloom and it was nice to see these as Tokyo is noted for these trees. Among the stores we found some t-shirts we liked and Kelsey even found a kimono. We did pass up the opportunity to purchase tempura, fried or plain grilled eel (which was for sale at several stands).
When we returned to the vehicle Saim took us to the area of the Imperial Palace. From our viewpoint we could not see the palace buildings, and it looked like there would be a substantial wait to get to one of the bridges that act as the entrances to the palace grounds. It was interesting to note that the trees in the area all looked like gigantic bonsai trees. We took a photo of our group with one of those trees as the background.
As we walked to the vehicle, we saw the first of many groups of what looked like go karts. There is a still and video of the first group we saw. Carl and I decided that if we return to Tokyo we would like to get in one of those and drive around the city.
It was near noon and we were hungry, so we decided to find a Hard Rock Café for lunch. The one we chose – Hard Rock Cafe Roppongi – is the oldest Hard Rock in Japan. We had a good-tasting lunch and near the end found that our waiter had the same name as one of our favorites at breakfast on the ship – Gustavo. Not only that, but his is from Southern Brazil – same as our Gustavo! Following lunch we visited the Rock Shop and got some souvenir shirts.
Yvonne had noted earlier that she would like to see the busiest pedestrian crossing – Shibuya. Saim took us to that area and waited as we viewed several crossing cycles. I don’t know how many people crossed during each cycle but there certainly we many! While there we saw more of the go kart groups traveling the streets of Tokyo.
Next Saim led us on a walking tour of a couple areas – the red light district was the first and the second was where we encountered a model of Godzilla peering over the top of a building. Walking a bit further we came to a well-known souvenir store – Don Quijote. The store was packed and difficult to navigate but we made our way through and out to our waiting vehicle.
We asked Saim if he would drop us at the Hilton where he picked us up in the morning. From there we walked to an area that was used during the 2020 (actually held in 2021) Olympics. There we found a downsized replica of the Statue of Liberty and a fountain that was set to music. As we began to walk back to the ship we saw thousands of tulips that were blooming. We also saw brightly-colored steps leading to a shopping center and a full-sized transformer model by this shopping entrance. I stopped on the way back to get a photo of MSC Magnifica and the Tokyo skyline near us. That completed our first day in Tokyo.
Here is today’s gallery.