Touring Tokyo

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After a restful sleep in (traveling takes its toll) we headed out to see some of the sights in Tokyo. We started by the imperial palace which was ok, but not that exciting after Himeji castle. We had lunch in a nice square by a fountain. We also explored the East gardens which were nice and peaceful and made for a lovely walk. After another ice cream break (they love their soft serve vanilla, and so do I) we headed for the Yasukuni-jinja shrine - a shrine dedicated to the war dead of Japan. The shrine was nice enough, but the real attraction for us was the war museum next to the shrine. Steve got really excited when we walked in and there in the entrance was a WWII “zero” plane, a Japanese fighter plane (don’t forget, Steve is a history buff, and did a minor in history). The museum was really interesting - it started out by giving a history of the samurai and the warring clans of ancient Japan, including some neat displays of old swords and armour. Then it moved into the Meiji restoration, when a political shift put the emperor back in power after hundreds of years of being ruled by Shoguns, and it chronicled the profound effect that Western influence had in completely changing the culture during this period. It also chronicled the conflict with China over Korea and several wars between the two countries. Finally, the whole lower floor was dedicated to Japan’s role in WWII, and this I found the most fascinating of all. It is always good to get someone else’s perspective on something, and I had always found it strange that Japan had sided with Germany had attacked Pearl Harbour so randomly. It was interesting to read Japan’s version of the events, and understand a bit more some of the reasons behind these events. It chronicled the battles, and the governments’ decisions throughout, and it was simply fascinating. The very end of this had 4 successive rooms with photos lining the walls of war dead who are enshrined in the Yasukuni-jinja shrine. This shrine is a bit controversial as some of the dead are considered to be war criminals, but it was still interesting none-the less. The final room held all sorts of memerobilia. They had tanks and guns and a display case full of old helmets or flasks or grenades. Steve was like a kid in a candy store. He wanted me to take his picture with everything. At first I was hesitant because there was a sign at the beginning of the museum saying no pictures, but we saw many Japanese trourists taking pictures in this room and so assumed this was ok. The two things Steve like the best was another airplane (a bomber) and a glider designed to be a suicide bomber - they would dive into a ship and explode with the bomb inside. The most interesting piece was the kaiten, because both Steve and I had never heard of them before. They were kind of like the kamikaze bombers, except they were little submarines designed with a bomb inside that a man would carefully drive into the side of a ship like a torpedo, blowing himself up along with the ship. It was chilling to think about the uses of these, and the lengths the Japanese soldiers would go for their country. Steve really enjoyed this part and was (and is) really excited to show his dad a lot of these pictures when he gets home.
After dinner we decided to go to the Shinjuku area of Tokyo - know for people, lights and shopping. We wanted to explore some of the large department stores there. We went in one that had 14 floors, and just wandered around looking at all the things there. Japanese fashion wasn’t that appealing to me - I guess it was just too different than what I was used to. Anyway, we mostly looked around and experienced being in big city Japan on our last evening.

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