Location: Tokyo, Japan

I’m in Tokyo, and it’s raining again. But as opposed to the rain in Kyoto (and Taipei), there is not much wind. So, it’s wet but not so bad.

I signed up for a day-long bus tour in Tokyo, and our starting point is the Imperial Palace. But there are two things – 1: we are not allowed too far onto the grounds, so we never actually see any palace, and 2: this is the day of the Tokyo Marathon. But our bus route was chosen well, and we only saw the marathon from a distance.

We arrived at the Imperial palace grounds and were met by a samurai, Kusunoki Masashige.

It was a 10-minute walk from the bus parking lot to the outer fence. It was striking, with fields of pine trees. Which is a good time to point out something I’ve noticed in Japan – there is a large appreciation of nature, but highly controlled nature. All of these trees are very pruned and maintained, like fully-grown bonsai.

Where it wasn’t trees and grass, the grounds were small gravel roads. However, they have interesting looking vehicle barriers.

The Imperial Palace wiki has better pictures, but I noticed the exterior fence, with pineapples on top, which is a very European-late-1800s thing to do.

Looking at the bronze samurai and pineapple fence brought into view (for me) the step thru time between Kyoto and Tokyo. The sites I visited in Kyoto are a celebration of the more distant past of Japan, where this visit to the grounds of the Imperial Palace is a step into the late 1800s. Of course, it is surrounded by very modern office buildings.

Walking back to the bus, I noticed something different with the cross walks. Rather than an Arabic number countdown, they used progress bars.

From the Palace we visited the Meiji Shrine, dedicated to the Imperial family during the Japanese transition from historical to modern period. There were nice woods between the parking lot and shrine.

On the way in we passed the building where you can get your car blessed to avoid traffic accidents. I wonder if that qualifies for insurance reductions.

The complex was full of screaming kids, as 3-Mar was “Girl’s Day” and the shrine was blessing children. We weren’t allowed to take pictures of the actual shrine, but the outer area was fine.

It’s now lunch time! We bused to a hotel restaurant with a great view of the Skytree, the tallest tower in the world. Lunch came as a stacking-box bento.

Food was good, and they had cherry blossoms.

After lunch we visited the Senso Temple in Asakusa district of Tokyo, with its five-tier pagoda. The rain picked up, so my camera-fu is weak.

From here I broke away from the tour, as we got a little delayed due to the marathon, but there were things I wanted to do and everyone had to be back to the ship by 4:00pm. So naturally I went straight to a cat cafe.

Yep, a place where (for a fee) you can sit around cats. I think pets are not allowed in most Tokyo apartments, so this is the way to get some purr therapy. For 600 yen (about $5), you can spend 30 minutes around cats. There were about eight other people there.

What I found interesting at Cat Cafe Monta is how thin the building was. Monta is on the eighth floor, and the elevator takes you directly to the cafe. There is no hallway, you exit the elevator right into the cafe – which is a single room.

Rejuvenated by the cat cafe, I took a cab to Akihabara, the electronics center of Tokyo. My focus was on my camera – I’m happy with my gear, but not my carry case. A search the day before aimed me to Yodobashi, which turned out to be a Tokyo version of Silicon Valley’s Fry’s. With comically-bad Japanese and mime-grade gesturing I was guided to the three long rows of different types of camera carrying equipment. I picked up a back pack with access zippers everywhere. I also needed shoes, but had no more time. That is one problem with the cool field trip to Kyoto – it eats into at-port time for the other cities.

Japan – I will return sometime. I’d like to spend a couple of months here. We’ll see, let’s finish the cruise first.