Weekends in Nippon...

So we've decided that since we already saw temples and shrines in Kamakura, we'd check out a newer city here in Japan. About a 45 minute train ride up north, is Yokohama. Yokohama is one of the biggest port cities in Japan, situated between Tokyo and Yokosuka. Yokohama is also home to the Fleet Mail Center - whenever you all send cards and gifts to us, (hint, hint) that mail arrives in Yokohama and goes through customs before being delivered to it's final destination.

Here's a picture of us in front of the largest ferris wheel in the world - it's cool to look at, but pretty scary riding it during a strong Japan wind. The Cherry blossoms were in full bloom that week; fortunately, the weather was great that weekend. Shortly after, it rained pretty hard, and all the Cherry Blossoms were washed away - no more until next year!







This is Landmark Tower, the tallest tower in Japan, and has the fastest elevator in the world; 69 floors in 10 seconds.



In keeping with our plan of rotating between something ancient and something new each weekend, we decided our next spot would be Asakusa. The oldest suburb of Tokyo, it contains the Senso-ji temple, built circa 628 AD. Here is the entance gate to the complex.


This is the main thoroughfare leading to the temple and shrine itself. It's lined with all sorts of stores, selling everything from pottery and toys to Samurai swords and dog clothes (seriously). As you can see by the number of people, mixing commerce and religion is the status quo in Japan.


Once we finally made it to the temple, we had a Japanese couple take our obligatory 'Mike & Cicely' photo, trying to get all of the 5 story shrine behind us in the pic too. Maybe we're just dumb tourists, but all these temples are starting to look the same...

On our train ride home, I gave up my seat to an elderly lady, and as a token of appreciation, her husband made this oragami baby for Cicely. I always told her I'd give her a baby ;o)