Japan Day One: Tokyo

For our first day in Tokyo, we went on a morning tour of 4 city attractions: the Meiji Temple, the Imperial Palace and its gardens, the Asakusa Kannon Temple and the Nakamise shopping arcade.  Waking up early has not been a problem for us since we are still adjusting to the time zone.  We're waking up at 5:30am with no alarm which puts us to bed rather early each night.

The tour was a great way for us to get a feel for the city and culture.  It's very clean and peaceful with many beautiful gardens and temples of worship.  Even the shopping arcade wasn't as overwhelming as it could be (then again, we're used to Chinatown in NYC so maybe we have a higher tolerance).

Meiji Temple:
Barrels of Sake

Prayer requests

The Imperial Palace Gardens:

Asakusa Kannon Temple:

Nakamise Shopping Arcade:

Asakusa Kannon Temple:
The area where you wash your hands and face before entering the temple

Incense... possibly for more prayer requests?  We didn't ask but know the symbol on the incense meant reincarnation.

Many shrines...

After the tour, we stopped in the Ginza area of Tokyo for lunch - delicious roasted dumplings and noodles.   We then headed back to the hotel to get out of the rain and also to look into how to get to Kyoto the next day.  Due to the rain and our jet lag, we stayed in and updated our blog and passed out early.