Woke up at 8am.
Left house at 10am.
Reached Otemachi Station at 11am.
Visited the Imperial Palace.
There were a lot of people, but the check point was very efficient despite the fact that they were very thorough.
One of the statue in the shrine.
This is a place/hut where these is a pool of water. People go in and scoop some water and wash first their left hand, then their right hand, and then their mouth.
And then you need to tie that paper to the lines beside it, just like what thus Lil girl did.....
There are also other kinds of similar thing where u can buy a piece of wood, and cali graph your wishes on it and then hand it on this wall.
Left house at 10am.
Reached Otemachi Station at 11am.
Visited the Imperial Palace.
There were a lot of people, but the check point was very efficient despite the fact that they were very thorough.
They even requested us to open our bags, and drink the water that we brought along in front of them, still in a very polite manner.
The whole palace is like walking in a heavily guarded botanical garden.
One of the buildings in the Imperial Palace.
One of the side entrence/exit of the Imperial Palace. Noticed how huge and tick and tall is the wooden door.
The palace is full with historical buildings and lots of trees, not only Sakura.
One of The park outside the palace. The trees all looks like bonsai like. Stocky.
1pm we went to Otemachi Station and had our first ever local authentic Japanese ramen.
400yen per bowl.
I ordered tempura ramen and Danielle ordered prawn ramen.
ordering is done thru a kiosk machine, and proceed to the counter by showing them your receipt, and in less than 3min, your servings are ready.
it was really wonderful.
the soup wasn't too salty, and the hot soup was perfect at this 8degree Celsius weather. most importantly the people are all very gentle and polite.
love this place very much.
After lunch we went to Tokyo Station.
Bought the tickets for Shinkansen from Tokyo to Nagano for 5th April, as we plan to go there for a day trip to see the famous "snow monkey sauna" scene.
Man , the tickets are not cheap.
33000 yen for two and fro for the both of us.
We spent some time in Tokyo, and then took a train to Yasakuni Shrine.
There is a lot of people that says that this is the most hated place for Chinese, as this is the place where the Japanese build this shrine to pray and worship all their soldiers and heroes during WWII.
I personally have no comments. I'm just here to see and learn about the different culture of Japan.
back to the topic.
somehow, I'm not sure , but it seems like they are celebrating some special events here.
there are lots hawkers selling food along the way, just like our Pasar Malam.
Notice the hawkers lining on both sides towards the entrence of the shrine.
One of the food we tried along the hawker stalls. It's a thick like kogepan with red beans paste. Hot, not very sweet. Not oily. Just nice for a very cold and windy evening.
We walked around the shrine.
One thing I really love about Japan is, although they are a very developed country, their parks and places are all still well preserved with a lots of old trees which you can see from their huge trunks.
The whole place is again filled with Sakura.
Entrence of the shrine.
And there is also some wishing thingies.
You drop 100yen into the box, and you will get a piece of paper which says all the lucky stuff.
And this will be the shrine itself (I guess).
Lots of people are lining up to pay respect.
The note there says:-
1 bow, 2 claps, 2 bow
... which is what everyone does.
There is a place in it where it's a long room with heater. It displays a lot of nice floral arrangement.
We left Yasukini Shrine around 6pm and reached Shinya at around 7pm.
Shinya is a very busy city.
The first thing of course was to find the very famous Hachiko statue.
If you haven't watch the movie Hachiko, please watch it. It's a very touching movie (especially if you are a dog lover)
To show you how busy Shibuya is, here is a snapshot of the infamous Shibuya Crossing when the lights turn green.
Did I mention that Shibuya was a very busy city? Well of course, shopping is definitely inevitable then.
1pm went back to sumiyoshi.
We walked around our housing area, and noticed that it's in fact a small village of its own, having a few easily accessible 7-11 like store, and also a few ramen, sushi, and other food related houses.
We bought some food and drinks from 7-11, and then headed back to our house
.......
...... only to find out that Danielle lost her Pasmo (subway) card with around 10000 yen worth of credit in it.
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