Day 13 - Tokyo

Our final day in Japan today, and we are staying on the 45th floor with curtains you can open without getting out of bed, so understandably we were very excited about waking up to the view. Excitement quickly waned when the only thing we could see was grey, which rather set the tone for the whole day weather-wise! Lots of grey skies and rain, but fortunately very little planned. We grabbed hotel breakfast - poached eggs feeling like a luxury after 2 weeks of cold rice and steamed Pork buns in the morning. I had then arranged for us to do a tour of the Asahi brewery through my boss at work. We had no idea what to expect from it all, but thought it would be fun to do.

We were met at the hotel by a man called Tomo (great name...) who is responsible for the Japan side of their European business. He navigated us on a couple of trains to the brewery (about an hour outside tokyo) where we were met by a lovely lady who gave the two of us a private tour of the place.

It was absolutely enormous, producing a years supply of beer for 30,000 average Englishman for a full year every day. However, almost everything is automatic, so they only had 250 staff.

The tour ended with us being shown into a private bar where they had laid on lunch for us and let us sample their core range of beers. By sample, I mean they gave us half a pint of each. We were then given a bag with 1of each of their main soft drinks, a bottle of whiskey and a box of beer flavoured chocolates. Once again, we were bowled over by Japanese hospitality... It's really something.

Back to the hotel to pack, and our table had been delivered. Only... Not in a box. Just wrapped in a tiny bit of bubble wrap. Cue a rush trip to the nearest post office to try and find a box big enough. Or, 3 boxes that were not big enough. 45 minutes and 2 rolls of duct tape and we had something we can put on a plane.

After that, bags were packed, swimsuits donned and we hit the sauna for a final relax.

We are just enjoying a final drink in a bar just below cloud level and looking over the city. It's safe to say there is a great sense of sadness to be ending such a wonderful holiday and to be leaving such an incredible country. There was a lot that was unbelievably amazing. There were a few things that could have been better. But there is no doubt in my mind that we will certainly be coming back to see more.