People, People, People Everywhere

We have been in Toyko 3 days and our overwhelming impression is the number of people everywhere especially in the railway stations. We have to regularly travel to Shinjuku station which is the busiest station in the world with 2 million people passing through it each day! And we believe it! Despite this people stand in orderly queues and are still very polite and helpful. A fellow jumped off his train to help us.

Last night we joined with thousands to go to a festival to see fireworks over the Sumida River. We were squeezed onto the train by railway staff pushing people in. We couldn't move an inch in the train! It turned out to be an amazing experience in crowd organisation. As police moved the crowd forward in sections to see the fireworks over the river. As we could not understand what the police were saying over their megaphones we didn't realise this at first so didn't get into the river of people. This actually worked out to our advantage as we were on the bridge when the finale fireworks went off.

Outside Shinjuku Station

Inside the station

Coming into the station

On the train

Street near our hotel in Ikebukuro

View from Government Metropolitan Offices

Shinjuku

The three of us at the fireworks

The fireworks

Fireworks over Komagata Bridge

People at the Fireworks

After the fireworks with the menus. Handy they had an English menu.

All 3 of us had this traditional Japanese dish which was delicious. We were very hungry as we didn't get to eat till 10pm. Pork, tofu, potato, snow peas, carrot and a few unknown things.

 Outside the restaurant.