Tokyo, Temples, Tasteless

Our final three nights were spent in Tokyo, a city of 13 million people. Sometimes when I think about population and amount of people, my brain can't quite comprehend the number of people that actually live in one place.


Saw a few more temples and different sites in and around Tokyo. Once again, the crowds were absolutely crazy because of the holiday. But interesting to see the locals and once again people watch.


And here's another shot of a cherry blossom in the middle of greenery on the mountainside-so stunning!


At the temples, sake companies often donate sake to be used for offerings. So in response they line up the barrels as advertisement. Interesting to see the cross of business and religion.


whenever you see a gateway like this, you know there is a shinto shrine behind it. According to the people I talked to, Japanese people are born as Shintoists and die as Buddhists. There is definitely a synchrotism between the two religions. And no one seems to be able to fully explain the religions they follow, which is also interesting.


Every temple has a washing/cleansing area. There is a specific routine to adhere to when washing.







Asakusa Kannon Temple is one of the oldest and most well known Buddhist temples in Tokyo. It has a lot of shops and food spots on the streets along the side. We had some of the local food and it was so tasty! I also learned here that the Canon camera was actually named after the Buddhist god, Kannon, but he changed the spelling so that it would be more acceptable in western culture. Not sure how I feel about my camera being named after a buddhist god mind you...


After seeing a few more temples, we decided to check out Tokyo DisneyLand. Turns out they have two parks, so we decided to check out then one we knew nothing about: DisneySea. First we went to see Disney's Cirque de Soleil, 'Zed'. It was amazing-such a cool stage setup as well!


DisneySea was fantastic! So fun to go on totally new rides! And we were the only white people in the park which was funny.


Our last full day was spent travelling to Mt. Fuji and Hakone. So beautiful. Went to the visitor's center and the 5th station of Mt. Fuji. The surrounding area is really beautiful too. Took a cable car up a mountain and it had stunning views.




Ah.. and the food. Now i know japanese food came from japan, but I did not like it much. It was all right, but did not have too much taste and was all kind of the same. Presentation was incredible mind you. But after a week of eating japanese food, I was excited to return to my western style of japanese. :)

The hotel we stayed at had really cool views off the top floor at night.

And thus concludes my trip. Hope you have enjoyed coming along for the journey. Thanks to my one faithful reader, Elsie for all her comments-have enjoyed reading your comments on the different posts.

Now back to regular day to day life!