Sorry for the delay in posting updates, we have been so busy that I haven't had time to sit in front of a computer much at all. After we arrived at our new hotel in Tokyo, (see last post), we went sightseeing.

This is a famous building, designed by a famous architect. It is the home of a tv station. We went for a tour. You can go into the round structure and look out. It was a nice view, but Tokyo is very cloudy, so I will move on to then next event. We took a train and walked over to the imperial palace grounds.

This is a gentleman whose job is to keep the tracks clear and keep everyone safe. He was dressed very nicely, I thought.

The entrance to the emperor's palace contains a park that is full a certain kind of pine tree, matsu, (pronounced mahtsue). The park was large and very clean, and you can see people resting underneath the trees. These are not homeless people. Tokyo is much more quiet than I expected. People speak quietly or not at all, the cars are quiet, no stereos blaring, no one yells at you to buy anything. On the trains, everyone is very well behaved. It is surprising to me that a big city can seem so peaceful No car horns honking. Very polite traffic. Wow.

Like many palace buildings, there is an inner gate. This gate is quite large, and the doors are huge.

Here is the closest we got to the emporer's palace. Apparently the emporer doesn't want a bunch of riff-raff wandering around outside his house. I can't say I blame him. It's not like he is supported by my tax dollars. Or yen. whatever. If you look very closely (click on the picture to enlarge it), you can see some workers in the lower left corner of the image. They are in the water.

That's all for now, more later!!!