Jet Lag and Food

It's really tough to be unable to sleep in past 3:00 in the morning but it is impossible to force it. Thus we decided to surf the Internet for a while and take stock of our plans for the next few days. 

Being extremely hungry this early in the morning is tough in a city like Tokyo. For such a large, world-class metropolis, a lot of restaurants and coffee shops just aren't open this early in the morning. We took our chances though and headed out around 5:30 to see what we could find. We went down to the Tokyo Station -- one of the largest and busiest in the city. You could have shot off a canon in the place. Nothing was open. We walked around for a while but had to wait until 7:00 for a coffee shop to finally open. It has been quite some time since I've enjoyed coffee and toast that much.

Waiting for anything to open...

Finally! A coffee shop is about to open...

The hotel we stayed at this time around (The Pearl Hotel) is very conveniently located near the Tokyo Station. This gave us great access to the Yamanote Line and from there most of Tokyo and the surrounding suburbs. This turned out to be a really good thing -- my jet lag was particularly bad this time around, so it was great to be able to easily get back to our room. I guess that all of those stops in Calgary, Edmonton, and Vancouver had taken their toll. We wandered around until about 4:00pm after which I went to bed... and did not wake up until the next morning! 12+ hours of sleep - I must be getting old...