Tokyo, Japan

The inception for this trip was an invite to a wedding banquet being given for our youngest son and his new bride in Taiwan.  Our new daughter-in-law has a large extended family in Taipei who couldn't make it to the USA for the wedding.  Since such a banquet is a tradition in Taiwanese culture, plans were made by her family to hold one and we were invited.  Given the time and expense to get there, the plan expanded to include a multi-country trip around the world that would take 2 months.  We would attend the banquet and just keep heading west.

Our first stop became Tokyo for a little additional Asian exposure.  We only spent 3 days there so didn't get out into the country-side, which was a shame, but we could only do so much and we tried to pack as much in as we could within certain financial and time limits.

Our time in Tokyo was maneuvered through the metro system.  We plan to use public transportation in most of the countries we plan to visit.  It is the most cost efficient and best way to get around congested large foreign cities.  Most systems are very good once you get the hang of them but they aren't always the most intuitive and you can spend a lot of time underground either on trains or walking to them.  They can feel a little like being in (what I imagine to be) a ground-hog colony where you run around the tunnels and pop your head up here and there.  That causes you to not always get a true sense of a city.  I fear that is what happened in Tokyo.  We spent a lot of time underground popping our head up here and there but I couldn't give you a sense of where we actually were in the city.

Our first trip out of the underground was to visit the Imperial Palace.  You can't actually get inside the old walls and most of the original buildings have burned down in the last hundreds of years.  There are new buildings now and much goes on there but you have to go through guarded gates.  We were there on a Sunday and we saw several black-suited men being admitted so it was not a day off for everyone.  The grounds are open and the East Imperial Garden is open to the public.  It was sunny and warm that day so it was a very pleasant area to be.  Lots of open space, park-like, in the middle of a very large city.

Outside Imperial Palace

Walls of Imperial Palace w/moat

Walls of Imperial Palace grounds

Within Imperial Garden

Tokyo Skytree

We also visited the Tokyo Skytree.  It is the tallest tower in Japan and was the tallest in the world at one point.  There are observation decks in it but we didn't go up since it was a cloudy day.

We walked from there to the Genshin-ji Temple.  It was very crowded with tourists and locals.  It is beautiful and we saw many in traditional Japanese clothing, come to worship and honor at the temple.  There were a couple blocks of stalls selling food and souvenirs to the tourists, but it was very interesting.  You could buy fortunes and, if you didn't like yours, you could leave it tied to special trees.  There was also a special fountain to drink from and a huge incense pit that would bring good luck by being in the smoke.

Genshin-ji Temple

Genshin-ji Temple