Sushi, cherry blossoms, and bright lights

My second (the first was visiting Baron in Paris for a week) big blowout vacation with my Delta benefits: Jeanne-Danielle and I went off to Tokyo for 4 days!
After a long flight of 15 hours we arrived in Tokyo, got to the hostel (just a discount hotel.. actually had a "rent by the hour" option..), changed clothes, and straight off went to see My Morning Jacket play a concert in Shibuya. The show was of course amazing and I think it attracted every white person in the 20 mile radius. The next day we went to see the Sensoji temple. It's a huge beautiful temple that is still in use today. It was surrounded by gardens, Buddhist statues, and a huge shopping lane with kiosks full of kimono, fans, toys, and delicious goodies.

The next day we headed over to see the Imperial Palace which turned out to be a huge maze leaded to basically a glorified military house (we were too late to see the inside unfortunately). It was a beautiful walk though! That night we headed back into Shibuya for a marvelous dinner. Sushi, smoked salmon, salad with tuna, sashimi, grilled mushrooms, more sushi.. incredible. Day 3: another temple and shopping! There's a shopping district for homewares such as chopstick sets, tea sets, and other serving accessories. Day 4 we tried to head over to South Korea but the flight filled up and it took us a while to get back out of the airport (Customs issues) so we grabbed another fabulous dinner of King crab legs and eel filet and stayed near the airport for our flight out the next day.

And the mélange of photos (click on 'em to get the full size)





My Morning Jacket playing in Shibuya


Shibuya area
Essentially a big, crowded Times Square of the East


Entrance gate to Sensoji temple


The shopping lane leading to the temple


Buddha statues
the left statue represents wisdom
the right, mercy


The Sensoji Temple


Entrance to the Imperial Palace complex
though, this does not give justice to its enormity


View from atop a lookout post (that was a hike)


Statue of Kusunoki Masashige

that translates to badass Samurai, if you were wondering.



Another temple, plopped right in the center of neighborhoods. It was incredibly old and it's still in use by the neighboring inhabitants, so we didn't go in..

I love that their neighborhood temple is so ancient and impressive - to them it's just the local temple.









The cherry blossoms were just beginning to bloom










A breathtaking Origami display



















The precision of paper..