Tues: Tour From the Sky

Tokyo Dome

Imperial palace

Train

Yesterday my mom and I took an aero-tour. It was my first time in a small plane (Cessna 172). We were supposed to go last week but the pilot was sick. He was very surprised to hear all the things we had done in the past week and a half. We had already been to a lot of the places that he pointed out. Before taking off we had to wait for about half a dozen C-130s to land. They landed one right after the other, very closely. We flew from Yokota across Tachikawa, Yokohama, Tokyo, and the bay. We saw little helicopters flying beneath us and even saw the Shinkansen (bullet train) that looked like a little white string moving through the city. It was amazing to see how densely populated Tokyo and it's surrounding areas were. The pilot said that Japan is roughly the size of California, but that the entire population of California is living in this Tokyo area (about 120 million). It was a hazy day, and although we couldn't see everything clearly, we were probably better off that way because the pilot said that when the air is clear it's because of wind- which makes for a bumpy ride. By the end of one hour (relatively smooth tour) I was feeling a little queasy.

Japanese version of a pick-up truck...are those 10" rims? How cute.