Tokyo, Japan--Day 51

Today we went to the Imperial Palace and luckily it wasn’t raining at all. In fact the weather was just really great. After eating breakfast we were able to walk to the Palace which you can only see just a little bit from the grounds, but you are able to walk around in the gardens. After taking a few pictures of what you could see of the Palace we walked around the gardens which were great, and the cherry blossoms were just barely coming out, so a few trees here and there had flowers on them.

After this we walked back to the subway/train and hopped on heading to a smaller shopping area. We got off of the train to find the street packed with people which made for plenty of people watching. We walked around and then got a snack at a coffee shop (we had churros, which neither Sonja or Valerie had ever seen!) and then found a Japanese entertainment center where you can get these instant photos of yourself. It seems like THE thing to do and Sonja and Valerie were telling me that their students have book and books filled with these photos (which also double as stickers). So of course we had to do it and there were tons of booths in the room where you could get it done. We waited and when it was our turn had a lot of fun taking the pictures then adding on silly things like crowns and stars and things onto the pictures before our time ran out and the pictures were taken.

By this time it was getting late and they had to catch their train back up north. So we went back to the train station which was an absolute mad house of people everywhere, but we managed to squeeze onto a train. We only had to go one stop which was nice and so we then got on the subway which was much less crowded.

We got back to the hotel and I said goodbye to Sonja and Valerie then went back up to my room. It was about 5 o’clock or so at this time and so I thought that I would take a nap and then go get something to eat for dinner. I didn’t realize how tired I was until I woke up the next morning, fifteen hours later.





(c) 2004 Sarah Galbraith. All Rights Reserved.