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| Meiji Shrine. Some old temple that partially survived the bombings in WW2 and the big earthquake before that. | Another view of the same shrine. It made a big square. There's a video of it, but this part is the most impressive. Big and Old. | Saitama Stadium where my High School soccer team played and won the first of five National Finals. Just heard from Hiraki, we have won 3 of 5 so far. | A strange looking building right in the middle of the picture. Some say it's phallic, I think it's like a tear drop. |
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| A huge Taiko drum, I think it was about 8 feet tall. It was at the shrine and I guess they beat it on special holidays. | The entrance to Meiji Shrine has two old archways. They are from Taiwanese trees and over 1700 years old. | Tokyo Station has nice architecture. It's a classic brick building and it's one of two central points in Tokyo. | Tokyo tower in the far distance. We walked to it and then to Tokyo station. Saved a few bucks on the subway and it was a beautiful day. |
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| A pagoda at Asakusa. 5 stories I think. Not sure what it was, but we couldn't go in. | The building Daisuke lives in. I think it is 35 floors and he lives on the 28th floor. he had a great view of the area. Would have liked to see the 35th floor view. | A sign at a Love Hotel. $40 to stay for 3 hours during the afternoon. $46 for 3 hours at night, and then $78 for the night after that. I'll get in a room soon for pictures. | The sign outside an exhibit for a treasure of the Meiji Shrine. Notice what I am pointing at. The time they close. Guess what time it is when the picture was taken. |
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| Yet another example of bathrooms where people can see straight in whiles are taking care of business. | A wall of sake at Meiji shrine. I think it was really old, but either way it was tall and there were a lot of them. | The shrine at Asakusa has a pit where there is a fire burning and the smoke is sacred smoke and people wave it towards them. | Daisuke and I at the base of the exit of the Imperial Palace where 10's of thousands of people were exiting after seeing the emperor wave. |
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| A small shrine outside of Asakusa temple. Not sure what people do here, but it was cool. | The inside of the big Asakusa shrine. You throw money in a box and clap twice and good things happen. | This is a crazy picture. Click the link above and look at the very ends of the roofing system. There is a symbol inside the circles. See if you recognize it. | The crazy crows followed us around Meiji shrine and cawwed at us. It was really spooky. We were sure they were saying "I got them on the west side, can I move in for the attack?" |
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| The front of Asakusa shrine. | The end of the shrine. | The Imperial Bridge that is famous for something. I think it's wooden and old like really old. | Young kids get all dressed up and walk around at Harajuku on Sundays. We were there on Sunday. It was cool. |
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| Dang those graffiti painters and their rude language. those little roughians. | More young freaky kids. | A Harley Davidson in Japan is a little strange to me, but they are a plenty. | Good old Colonel Sanders. We ate there after watching my soccer team win the first of 5 games. |
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Imperial Palace Tour |
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| We are only about 2,000 people away from the front. Would be a bad ratio except 400,000 people are there. | People waving flags at the emperor. | A guard house on the corner of the Imperial property. | A different Imperial thing on the property. |
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| Yet a 3rd Imperial building, but this one was inside the Imperial property. | The lines where we lined up for the entrance. Each line holds nearly 5,000 people. | The Emperor's brief little speech. His entire family was there. | More frantic waving the little Japanese Flags at the Emperor and his family. |
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Short Videos |
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| Cool food that we had to cook ourselves | A cool building with a video screen as the front | A 360 view of inside Meiji Shrine | A huge 25-Foot TV screen on the side of a building. |
| Kaiten sushi on the little conveyor belt | The long Imperial House | The Asakusa Pagoda. It was an Abe Pagoda | The main intersection at Shibuya |
| Busiest train station in the world | The Emperor waving at 50,000 people | Saitama Stadium | |