We were on a 9.30am flight from Heathrow to Tokyo Haneda Airport so we stayed in the Premier Inn in Slough the night before as needed to be at the airport for 6.30am.

We were flying with Japan Airlines – an airline we had never used before and departing from Terminal 3. We checked in, spent an hour or so in the airport lounge, had a very early morning glass of wine (whilst Tom ate sushi for breakfast!) and then boarded our flight. We were on an A380 which had a 2-4-2 configuration so Tom & Izzy sat in a row of 2 in front of Stu and me. Boarding the plane was a dream – no one stood up until they were called and there was no queuing or people standing next to the gate like we usually experience. We loved flying with JAL and would definitely fly with them again.

^{Never too early for wine or sushi!}

14 hours later we arrived in Tokyo at about 7.30am in the morning with a very long day ahead of us. Stu had booked us all shower rooms at the airport so we could shower and get changed. I was a bit dubious at first but they were beautiful and very clean. We all had our own private shower room for 15 minutes which set us up for the day. We then found a coffee shop in the airport to buy a drink and some breakfast before locating the train station and heading to our hotel.

We took the train to the Shinagawi Train Station and then had a 10 minute walk to the hotel. We were staying at Miyako City Tokyo Takanawa – which we booked on booking.com. Unfortunately our check in was not until 3pm so we handed over our luggage and went exploring for a few hours.

Our first stop was the Imperial Palace but we needed to navigate Tokyo Train Station first – one of the largest train stations in Japan. Apparently it is a destination in itself as it has a huge shopping mall underneath it! It is also in a beautiful red brick building.

We then wandered to the grounds of the Imperial Palace. We did not think they were the best gardens we had ever visited but it probably was not helped by the fact we were really starting to feel the effects of being up for almost 20 hours!

^{The grounds of the Imperial Palace}

We found ourselves a Starbucks where we had toasties and cake for lunch and then headed back to our hotel where luckily our rooms were ready and we could have a quick afternoon nap. It was needed!

We didn’t want to sleep too long as we needed to get onto Japan time as quickly as possible so we set our alarms and at about 6.30 pm headed out for the evening. We took the train to Asakusa Station from which it was under a 5 minute walk to Sensō-ji – Tokyo’s oldest Buddhist temple dating back to 628AD. As we left the train station we had stunning views of Tokyo Skytree in the distance.

We had heard that Sensō-ji was very busy but because we were there in the evening and it was raining it wasn’t too bad at all. We were not able to enter the temple as it had closed but we wandered around the complex and saw the gates and the pagoda.

^{The complex at Sensō-ji}

We then found a McDonalds for tea and they had some Japanese items on their menu – so Stu opted for a teriyaki burger. Tom & Izzy then found a shop selling chocolate covered strawberries for their pudding and we headed back to the hotel for the evening – once we had figured out how to top up our rail tickets at the ticket machines.