I have always been fascinated with Japanese history, culture more so on Shoguns and Samurai As a young man, I was mesmerized with Bushido, the way of the warrior or the Samurai code of honor. We tried today to cover as much as possible despite the rains the whole of Tokyo. We started with the Meiji Jingu Shinto shrine dedicated to the deified spirit of Emperor Meiji. The shrine is surrounded by a lush green forest in the heart of Tokyo. Next we visited the Imperial Palace. It was built on the site of the old Edo Castle. It used to be a Samurai palace. There was a new emperor last year. Naruhito succeeded Akihito who abdicated and the first emperor who did so in 200 years. We then proceeded to Sensō-ji which is an ancient Buddhist temple located in Asakusa. It is Tokyo's oldest temple, Despite aching in her knees, Becky and I made sure that we have pictures taken at the temple’s lantern site. According to our guide, this is a must site for tourists. We also passed by a huge gymnasium to be used for the Tokyo Olympics this August. We drove also through Tokyo’s cyber area where Anime/ Manga Otakus (geeks) converge. Our son, Kahlil will surely love this place. Becky also learned origami while on route. We then had our late lunch at Hanano Mai where we ordered a traditional Sumo wrestler’s meal known as chanko hot pot. It is said that Sumos eat only twice a day totalling 8,000 calories. They also wear the traditional chonmage top knot hair style. It is said that if a sumo wrestler gets bald, he is retired. Natawa kami ni Becky kasi naisip namin hindi pala puwedeng maging sumo wrestler iyong mga kaibigan naming “Arabo”. - hehehe After lunch, we went to Tokyo Skytree. This is reputed to be the world’s tallest tower at about 2081 feet almost twice that of CN tower. The highlight of the day was the Tokyo bay cruise at night. The Tokyo skyline was so beautiful. The challenge for Becky however was when we disembarked from the boat. She had to go up about 80 steps and down again for us to get to the bus. She was already almost in tears when we reached the bus but we made it. We were dropped off at the Shinjuku station where we had dinner before jumping on to the Hilton hotel shuttle back to our room. We completed packing as tomorrow we are finally going home to currently cold snowy Vancouver.
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