Saturday, April 13

We awoke early at about 5:00 AM, but we both had a pretty good night’s sleep. We enjoyed the breakfast buffet at the lobby level restaurant, and then it was time to begin touring around Tokyo, specifically the Shinjuku City area, where the Hilton is located. We consulted with the concierge about our plans and received some good advice and a local map! We had a beautiful, sunny day with temperatures in the 60’s to enjoy!

We exited the hotel and proceeded just to the southwest, where there is a smaller park called Shinjuku Central Park. It had some nice landscaping and a Shinto shrine that dated back to 1403 AD. It was called Juniso Kumano Jinja. We continued walking south to a larger park called Meiji Jingu. It is named after Emperor Meiji (1852 - 1912). We traveled through a residential area with mid-rise buildings and narrow (about one lane) streets. It was interesting to see how their neighborhoods are laid out.

Then we arrived at the lovely Meiji Jingu park, whose primary feature is one of Tokyo’s more impressive Shinto shrines. The shrine, established in 1920, is dedicated to the divine souls of Emperor Meiji and his wife Empress Shoken in order to venerate them forever. Note that emperors of Japan were considered to be divine until the Emperor Hirohito renounced his divinity after World War II.

When we entered the shrine, a wedding procession was moving through the central courtyard of the shrine. It was quite lovely, but we thought it odd that no one was smiling or showing much joy for what must be a joyous occasion! The wedding party was wearing traditional Japanese clothing.

A note about the shrines: you can look in a little bit, but you can’t go in and signs indicate that you cannot photograph the interior. From here we then paid to enter an imperial garden area that had a nice pond from a fresh spring, a “river” of iris gardens (not yet in bloom) and an azalea garden (also not fully in bloom). This was peaceful and nice. We continued on and saw one of the largest wooden torii (Shinto gates).

We also saw a display of sake barrels, placed here every year as an offering to the enshrined deities.

Then we walked over to a commercial area where we bought a few souvenirs (nail clippers!) and some water to drink. In the cafe two ladies wearing kimonos were eating a noodle dish. Weren’t they afraid of spilling on the kimonos?

Then we walked a distance to another park, which had many beautiful cherry trees in bloom and a lot of people enjoying them. This park was called the Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden. We took a lot of photos. There was also a traditional Japanese garden area in this park. We exited the park opposite where we entered and were surprised to see the long line of people waiting to get in at this entrance (there was an entrance fee for this park, plus a bag check). The cherry trees were a little past peak, but still lovely.

Our plan at this point was to stroll through the Shinjuku shopping area, one of Tokyo’s most impressive with many department stores. We first went up and down some narrower side streets that looked interesting. We were trying to find a place to eat lunch, but none of the restaurants had any English on their signs, so we concluded that they were probably not tourist friendly. We went to the Isetan department store, and their seventh floor contained a collection of different restaurants, according the store map. So we rode the elevator up and strolled through the floor. It was very busy with lines to enter most of the places, which also did not have any English signage. We ultimately decided to go to the largest choice, which was called “casual dining.” It had western, Chinese, and Japanese food. Roy ordered a Japanese style hamburger, and Rob had tempura shrimp and beans with udon noodles and rice. After lunch, we crossed over to the separate Isetan men’s store, where we found a new lightweight jacket for Rob (birthday present).

After this, our energy was fading, so we walked back to the Hilton. The streets were very lively, but the shopping wasn’t really for tourists. As we walked down the main street of the area, Yasukuni-dori ("dori" means street), we were frightened by the arrival of Godzilla (Gojira in Japanese)!

We also stopped for some impromptu shopping at the “Hello Kitty” store (gifts for Rob’s sister Eve).

Then we admired the large video screens at the open area near the Shinjuku Station, which is the busiest train station in the world. We arrived at the hotel at about 3:00 PM and relaxed until 6:00 PM when we went to the second floor for free wine and food in the substitute executive lounge. It was pretty nice and had live music. We stayed until closing (8:00 PM), making the hot and cold hors d’oeuvres our dinner. Then back to our room, where we retired at about 9:00 PM.