We stayed in the Hotel New Otani in the Akasaka district (not to be confused with the Asakusa district, which is completely different). Akasaka is the business area.
Photo documentation of one of the few times I checked email is below. We were up on the 31st floor of a tower with a very urban view. Just behind the drapes on the left is actually an office building that looked directly into our room.
This is how I looked most of the trip. The guidebook was my friend.
Adam bows outside of BenzaitenTemple in the Ueno district.
Because one must always dress appropriately, I made sure to coordinate with the Shinobazu Pond, which was covered in lotus plants.
Yes, reading the guidebook again. So "addresses" in Japan are loads of fun. There are three numbers in an address. The first denotes the district--easy enough. The second denotes a certain block (or blocks) of the district, which is doable though it takes some time to find the specific area. The third number is the building number. That sounds logical, but the buildings were numbered in order of construction, not in the order you see them on the street.
This is the Imperial Palace. The slightly crooked angle of the picture was part of my artistic vision.
I enjoyed the positive nature of this wall in a stairwell up to a video store. And I was always happy to see English--or even just Roman characters for that matter. Never have I felt so illiterate and incompetent as when finding myself on a street with all Japanese characters. It's strange to not even begin to understand what a sign says--sometimes it was hard to tell what kind of business I was looking at.
The day we went to Asakusa, considered the traditional district, was unfortunately quite rainy.
The road to the temple is lined with many...well...tourist traps.
Adam gawks at the incense burner that is said to cleanse you before you enter the temple.
We're not sure what this water was, but everyone was taking drinks from the communal cups, so I pretended to for this picture. But I didn't drink it because I was weirded out by the whole thing.
And the Sensoji Temple, the oldest in Tokyo.
Elsewhere in the Asakusa district, we found an underground parking garage for bikes! Looks like a Kaiser Permanente ad.
We also paid a visit to the Park Hyatt Tokyo, where Lost in Translation was filmed. Here's the million-dollar view from the bar.
And here's the million-dollar bill with our change: two yen (think two cents).
The Tokyo Metropolitan Government building (TMG) has an observatory where you can see more great views without having to buy expensive alcohol.
Voila.
The National Diet Building--the reason the Japanese are so svelte. *yuk, yuk* Okay, that was bad. It's the political center. And, again, the picture is crooked because I took it.
Note the changing facial hair of my husband. We're traipsing around the grounds outside of the Imperial Palace.
There are gorgeous hydrangeas all over Japan.
By a pond in the Imperial Gardens.
We also went to Yebisu to see the Sapporo Beer Museum.
The top of Yebisu. What can I say, we like views.
Crossing the bridge to our hotel on our last day in Tokyo.
Incidentally, this trip was the first time I'd crossed the International Date Line. Woohoo!
And now I'm going to go lay down: jet lag.
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