Tokyo Rose and some stories.

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Arrived in Tokyo from China on September 5th. Dave met me at the airport, he had just come in off his flight from Canada and desperate for a vacation. We headed to the hotel, a no frills business one that was clean and dirt cheap, and passed out for a day. After our recovery, we hit the temples in the area. Asakusa is very old, and has some great little nooks and crannies to explore. The main temple we went to was the Buddhist Senso-Ji. This was a very popular place with lots of locals. There was also a ton of old wooden buildings from the Edo period that survived the fire bombings in WWII. It was a nice rustic touch.

We also went and did some souvenier shopping. As neither one of us is into buying crap for crap sake, we're a bit picky so we look more than we buy. Thank god we have a phrasebook with us, as our Japanese is non existant. I can read a bit due to nihongo using some of the Chinese characters, but speaking is a disaster without the book. Everyone is so well heeled here, the women are so well dressed I feel like a total slob. But I brought clothes for the trek in China, not here so I hope to remedy it a bit.

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Photos

First Temple
The main temple of Senso-Ji

The Pagoda
At Senso Ji

Small temple
This is part of the larger Senso Ji complex, which is a Buddhist temple.

Garden at the temple
Just like in China, rocks are sacred and are inscribed with poems or sutras.

Local Deity
People make hats and clothes for the statues especially when praying for children.

Colourful Tokyo
A Pachinko Parlour...I'll never go in one, too loud and crazy!

Asahi Beer Building
I have no idea what the gold thing is. I also have a picture of this from 16 years ago so this is cool to come back to the same spot.

Tokyo National Museum
A great place, and we got to see the new Zen exibit here.

Dave at Ueno Park
The museum and a host of other things including the zoo and the Music and Arts University are located here.

Hiking in Tokyo
It is possible to escape the city in Tokyo. Here we are at the Toshogu Shrine, with 100 lanterns paving the way.

The Shrine
Devoted to the first Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu who unified all of Japan in teh 1600s

The Shrine
A beautiful Old Tree

cool buildings
Tokyo is never boring.