Turning Japanese

Sushi was the first order of business in Tokyo, though we were still hungry after finding that it’s not significantly cheaper than in the States. We walked around Sunshine City in the northwest part of the city, and eventually found some Chinese pork buns in the train station near our ryokan.

More vending machines. This one had pancake-flavored milk for sale.

Correctly anticipating a low level of enthusiasm for self-planned sight-seeing, we had all booked a bus day tour of Tokyo. It was a welcome break from the past few days, and we learned a lot of subtle bits about Japanese culture from our tour guide. We were able to see a lot of the big tourist sites and make plans for our last days in Japan.

One of the 3 tori gates to the Meijo Shinto Shrine.

A corner of the Eastern Imperial Gardens.

The Senso-ji Buddhist Temple, built around an image of Buddha found by fishermen. Noone has actually seen the small statue.

One of the ceiling tiles in the temple. Dragons!

At the Kaminarimon, or Thunder Gates, leading to the Buddhist temple.

On the Symphony, doing a quick boat tour of Tokyo Bay.

A mini-Statue of Liberty. It's a replica Japan made of the one France let them borrow? I don't know.

After the tour we went to Shibuya, famous for its insane scatter crossing (a crosswalk that alternates between vehicle traffic in set directions and foot traffic in any direction). We had a dinner of tempura there, then stopped by a small shop for ice cream and other snacks on our way home.

Hachiko waiting for his master outside Shibuya station.

A shot of the scramble crossing from the nearby Starbuck's window.

There wasn’t enough time to really get to know Tokyo like we did Seoul, but I’d visit Japan again.