We went on the Panoramic Tokyo tour.
Driving past the Tokyo tower...
our first stop was the Meiji Shrine which is a Shinto Shrine. There are two main religions in Japan - Shinto and Buddhism. After walking past the donated Sake barells ....
we arrived at the shrine, where we first had to cleanse ourseleves before going into the temple to say our prayer.
The clensing area:
The temple (you could not take pictures in the temple):
To pray, you throw a few coin donations into a box, bow twice, clap twice, say your prayer and then bow again. We found out what the little boards/notes were, they are Ema (Votive Tablets) which have personal prayers on them.
Back on the bus for our drive past the government buildings to the Imperial Palace East Garden, past the Watch Towers which sit on the Moat (there are ten moats around the Edo castle), we walked past some mounted police:
The gardens were nice, and I imagine they would be even nicer in a couple of weeks when spring actually hits and the blossoms are all out:
Next stop was a Buddhist temple - the Senso-Ji Temple, which backs onto the Asakusa Marketplace. A cool marketplace full of alll goodies Japanese - Kimono's, Fans, Sweets and more.
Hehehe ... where's Wally?
After a little bit of shopping we were off to our lunch, which was on the 12th floor looking out on to part of Tokyo Harbour. It was actually a french restaurant (we got to eat some steak!)
After finishing lunch, we got to enjoy a nice quite cruise on Tokyo Harbour, going under the Rainbow Bridge and past the man-made Island Odaiba:
Last stop was Odaiba. They actually have a replica of the Statue of Liberty here. Only a little bit of time to shop in the adjoining mall before heading back to the hotel.
Dave bought these funny looking sweets today to try when we got back to the room (he has been buying about 5 bags of different things to snack on a day, just to try them out!)
Tonight was Dave's pick for dinner. He decided on a downstairs Italian Restaurant. Once again, Japanese on the menu and italian (thank god we have eaten at a few italian restaurants, so we could pick a couple of things to eat). The highlight of the meal though was the magician who came and did a personal magic show for us, he was really good and really entertaining!
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