September 27, 2009

Johnny took us near the Meiji Shrine…by foot. Interesting views of the nearby city neighborhoods. We went through the “love hotel” district where the prices were by the hour instead of nightly rates. :) Johnny left to get a haircut.

Here are some of the sights we saw en route to the Shrine.

This structure is the Tokyo Nation Sports Stadium. The architecture was modeled after a Samurai helmet.

We found the Meiji Shrine—and just the walkway to get there was a like time portal. The large gateways were stunning.

There were 3 such gates before we got to the actual shrine.

This is the Japan we love to see. We were lucky enough to see a couple of weddings happening while we were there.

We were just coming out of the shrine area when Johnny came up.




Walked around the many shopping streets. The sea of people is just amazing.








Took a taxi back to the house and then picked up Yoshiko-san and we all went by train to watch the last home game of the Tokyo Giants baseball team.















When Kyle was in Japan, he said that there is no comparison to Japanese baseball. We were sitting in the cheering section of the Tokyo Dome—and at the first cheer, Grace said, “Yeah—ok—I see what Kyle means.” Here are a couple of examples.





This occurs every time our team is at-bat…ALLLLL through the inning—not just sporadically. The opposing team has their own cheering section. It was a lot of fun. Oh—and yes—the Giants won! :)


Of course, the other--attraction--perhaps maybe even the "main" attraction, are the "beer girls"--who carry *kegs* (all right--they're not full-sized kegs--but they're kegs nonetheless) of COLD beer on their backs and the serve it right there. Purty girls and beer--can't get any better than that!










After the game we went to a noodle shop and had ramen. Both Kyle and Kevin have been raving about the noodle shops…and how we really have never had “good ramen”. Now we know why. What we experienced this night was pure mouthwatering joy.