Last full day in Tokyo

Too tired to do the photos in the midst here, so I created a set just for today on Flickr. Follow along at your own pace. :)

I thought I'd be posting that I didn't take that many photos today, but of course that's not the case since I went to a garden/forest area with a shrine with an old Japanese building in it. The gates, rooflines, and lovely details alone crank me into high-photography gear!

Anyway, the day started with no plans except for meeting Hiro-san, Shizuko-san, and Rumi-san for dinner at 7. When I got up I knew I wanted to see a few of the famous neighborhoods, so after breakfast I just set out to do that... no real plan. I took the Yamanote subway line (mental note: stay very close to this line when next I visit, because it's the loop that goes everywhere) down to Shibuya.

In Shibuya, the first thing I witness is this big building with a huge video blaring sound out as it goes. This and a few others like this make me see where those movie shots come from in so many sci-fi flicks. But the shops weren't really open yet at this point, so I went into the nearby Starbucks and had some coffee, watched the crowd through the window, and read some from my Kindle. Heard more English in the SB than I had since I arrived.

After a break, I went to walk around some more. Lots of street shots, some neat buildings and stores, and I wandered through Seibu, the deluxe high-end department store there. From there I wandered around even more, snapping photos along the way, and I made my way over to Harajuku. I quickly found my way to the mothership H&M store, but decided I didn't really feel like carrying more clothes in my suitcase, so walked a bit more and found myself in the heart of Harajuku fashion. A wild street with quite a few crazy store windows and outfits walking around. Not like the weekend, I'm sure, but impressive nonetheless. No Gwen Stefani, though.

While there, I was on the hunt for the Ukiyo-e woodblock print museum, and after a few loops around, I found it! I have no photos except for the entrance, but trust me, these prints from the 1700's-1800's are spectacular. So many amazing images. And one of them really hit me in an emotional way, and I don't really know why. But, if there are such a thing as previous lives, I definitely lived in the Edo period!

After that I grabbed some food at the Donner-party Kebab stand. I mean Doner Kebab stand. :) Tasty!

And from there I realized how close I was to the Meiji-Jingu shrine, so I had to go over there. My feet were already hurting at this point, but why stop now? So I hoofed it over, and found the first huge gate, a lovely path, a second huge gate, lovely chrysanthemums, and then the entrance building. I was taking tons of photos along the way, and then when I went into the courtyard, I was a wedding procession! The couple and leaders were all decked out in formal kimonos, and it was so lovely. I got a shot of the couple later, too. I ended up taking a million photos of these lovely buildings, including one I wasn't supposed to take of the interior shrine building. D'oh! But he didn't make me erase it!

And once I was done there, I made my way through the rest of the amazing forest-lined walk to another subway station and came back to the hotel.

This allowed me time to sit and let my legs recover before going out to dinner. Hiro and family were meeting me at 7 at the Tokyo subway station, and I got there and met up with them. We went to a traditional Japanese restaurant and had a huge 5 or 6 course meal, all amazing, and all gorgeous. It was a screened room, seats on the floor, and lovely company to enjoy it all. Great to see some friendly faces, too! And of course I took photos of every course.

Tomorrow it's a little bit of time in the morning (maybe seeing the nearby shrine) before heading out to ride the bullet train to Kyoto. Woot!