Another glorious sunny day in Tokyo for our last morning here on this year’s trip.  It was Culture Day today, a national holiday and a popular day for weddings in the 400-year-old Japanese gardens of the New Ōtani Hotel.

A scene that attracted some photography from our group.

The beautiful gardens were where our artists spent the morning, after Ev’s briefing, alongside the gardeners who were doing their twice annual tree trimming.

At midday, we boarded a bus for the long, long, long road trip to Shimoda — only 180km south-east of Tokyo, but with public holiday traffic, road works, and traffic lights every 150metres,  it felt like 1800km.

It took almost two hours longer than the scheduled four and a half to reach our resort hotel, Izukyū Shimoda, which will be our base for the next five nights.  Our rooms are Japanese style, with futons on the tatami mating floor to sleep on.  An adventure!