TOKYO, JAPAN DAY TWO!

Today was the day for our “Tours With Locals” look around Tokyo! It was a seven hour tour, using public transportation to get around the city.  We met up with our (delightfully sweet) tour guide, Akio, who guided us on what day pass to purchase for the subway.  (It sure helped having help!)

Michelle wanted to “act like a local” while touring with a local!  (She succeeded!)

I was excited to be riding the subway with the locals and not on another tour bus!

Our first subway stop was in Ueno where we walked around the Ueno Park.  The Cherry Blossom Festival had just begun!

This was the oldest Buddhist Temple in the park (sorry, I forgot the name),

with a cool tree whose circular branch was commonly used to frame another temple in the distance.

John almost rang the temple bell until he read the sign “Don’t Ring The Bell!”  (Just in the nic of time!)

This was a Hindu-style pagoda that was also in the park.

We entered the grounds of the Ueno Toshogu Shinto Shrine.  These were lanterns that used to be lit with fire every evening.  It must have been magical—there were so many of them!  They don’t use fire any longer (they need to invest in LED bulbs)!

This was a traditional Japanese Buddhist Pagoda, also in the park.

We’d seen these good luck tokens on previous tours.  Akio told us that mostly students hang them for good luck with their studies.

These, Akio explained, were bad luck tokens that were tied in a knot and left hanging.  This was where you left your bad luck behind.

Trees were blooming throughout the park!  (Spring had sprung!)

We got educated on Emperors, Shoguns, Samurai’s, etc., (but it remained all Greek to me!)

The park was huge and not only were there temples and shrines and pagodas throughout it, there were also museums in the park.  (Luckily for me, this was as close as we got to them!)

From the park we got on the subway again to an area called Ginza, where we walked through the street markets.  It was AMAZING!

Akio pointed out this bug machine!  (We almost bought a can for August and Jonah!) Vending machines of all kinds are everywhere in Tokyo.

We mentioned to Akio that Michelle was interested in looking at more discounted pearls.  Lo and behold, we hit the mother load in the shop he took us to!  (Let’s just say both Michelle and I walked out happy!)

Walking the streets of Tokyo was fascinating!

Back on the subway, I wanted so badly to get the name of this book.  (It looked like such a great read!)

Akio took us to a noodle restaurant called Ginzasanada for lunch.  We all ordered Soba noodles (buckwheat) and were they ever GOOD! (We have successfully eaten our way through Champon noodles to Ramen noodles to Soba noodles!)

The brewskies weren’t bad either!

Back to the subway for a ride to the Imperial Palace inside the Edo Castle.  The grounds surrounding the Castle were called Edo Keicho and were beautiful.  Much of the castle was destroyed during WWII.

As we were walking back to the subway, we saw go karts fly by—a tour option in Tokyo.  (We need more time here!)

The subway dropped us off at the Meiji Jingu Shrine.

These were barrels full of Sake!  They sure brought a smile to Michelle’s face!  (That girl loves her Sake!)

We got to go inside the temple (no photos were allowed), and say a prayer Japanese-style.  This wasn’t our first rodeo, so we said our prayer Japanese-style with utter confidence.  (Except for John, who left me to pray by myself!  Jerk! 😁)

We caught a Shinto priest all dressed in his priestly garb.  They were preparing for a wedding at the shrine, so we assumed the priest was preparing for the wedding as well.

We jumped back on the subway to the Shibuya Scramble, the largest intersection in the world!  It was ABSOLUTELY UNBELIEVABLE to witness!

We got to see and then PARTICIPATE in the actual Shibuya Crossing!  (And we SURVIVED to tell about it!)

After our evening cocktails, we went up to the 37th floor of the Inter Continental to a restaurant called Teppanyaki Akasaka!  The view was breathtaking, the food was delicious and the chef was oh so entertaining!  (He didn’t speak a word of English, but could he use the salt!)

If you can believe it, Michelle and I had reached our maximum capacity on wine!  (So water it was!)

It was a great ending to a wonderful day in Tokyo.  But, man, we were STUFFED TO THE MAX (and chock full of salt)!  And to think, we have a food tour scheduled in the morning!