Japan - Day 6 (Tokyo)

Today we woke up to some drizzle, but also the appearance of snow with the cherry blossoms falling off.  We have seen them bloom, fill out and now they are starting to fall off. 

All of this has occurred within a week. We were lucky we were here the right week. Sheila was commenting that all our pictures have cherry blossoms in them, but the reality is they are everywhere.  Unfortunately it seems impossible to catch in a picture the actual beauty of these trees.

We drove to Tokyo today.  Steve drove us up because Lydia had a hair appointment and planned to take the train.  We got there after about an hour or so.  This was taken near the New Sanno, which is the Armed Forces Hotel in Tokyo.  We parked at the hotel and took the subway to the Tokyo

Tower. 

It looks a lot like the Eiffel tower and the top observation deck is at 250 meters.  We rode it up to the lower observation deck (150 meters) and got a lot of great pictures of the area. 

Most big US cities you can look in one direction and see the downtown and all the large buildings, but looking in every direction in Tokyo are large buildings as far as the eye can see.  We then went up to the top observation deck.  Kyle did not enjoy that at all.  It was very high, smaller and he felt the tower sway.  But, once again, he was a good sport and faced his fears. One of the workers offered to take our picture.  See, Kyle is looking pretty good.

This was looking down through a piece of plexiglass in the floor. 

All the people who worked there, and everywhere, were so friendly and always smiling and actually acted like they were the luckiest people to be working wherever we went. A worker asked if we wanted him to take our picture.

After we left the Toykyo Tower,  we went to a Buddhist temple which was right across the street.  This is a picture from Tokyo tower. It was bombed and destroyed in WWII, and rebuilt after the war.  There was some sort of ceremony going on inside so we couldn't enter it - actually, I'm not sure we could have entered anyway. It was really beautiful architecture, with massive beams and the expected curvy roof.

This is the only part that is left from the original structure.

We then took the subway to the imperial palace.  We walked all around the east gardens.  We walked a long time on the grounds.  They were massive! 

See the two people to the left?  That was Kyle and Steve.  Their
legs were so long and they walked so fast that they got way
ahead of us. 

We then went on the other side to the gate. You can't get in. You can only see a beautiful bridge.  The palace is hidden behind trees and surrounded by a mote, so we couldn't see it.  The building in the picture is a guard house.

We then came back to the hotel and Lydia arrived and we went downstairs to eat.  Steve and Lydia then went to the international market; Kyle went off by himself to explore the night life.  Sheila and I had ice cream and were off to bed.  We had to rest up because tomorrow is Tokyo Disneyland.