Tokyo Sightseeing

I feel so fortunate to have Lori around to be my Tokyo expert and such a fantastic tour guide. She has really done an excellent job leading me around and I feel like it has really made my trip so unique. Yesterday on my free day, our "cram session" began with the earthquake and then we went out and visited so many parts of the city. Tokyo seems to be a place of contradiction on many levels, but I am really surprised at the way modernity and tradition live so close together. A shrine or temple seems to be nestled right between two modern buildings as if they have always lived in harmony. We started off with lunch at a spaghetti restaurant and had spicy noodles that had a raw egg on top. I was really apprehensive about the raw egg but it was absolutely delicious.. We did some shopping in Shinjuku and then went to Harajuku, which is where the hip fashionable teenagers hang out on Saturdays. The Japanese people are really fashionable and crazy dressing people, but some outfits I saw were insane! The trend-setting teenagers were outside the Meiji Shinto Shrine and we were so fortunate to see several weddings there as well. The Meiji Shrine is dedicated to Emperor Meiji and his wife, Empress Shoken. The Shrine was crowded and seemed to have provided peace and tranquility in such a busy part of the city. We then went to the Ginza area, which is the 5th Avenue of Japan and then on to a train over the Tokyo Bay area where all the buildings are very futuristic. We ended our busy day of walking with dinner at a Korean BBQ restaurant and then crashed for the night. I took this video at Yoyogi Park...enjoy!