I got some great shots from the tower of different sections of Tokyo, but they're pretty generic. Tokyo has a number of "downtown" areas, clusters of very tall buildings, with the areas in between filled in with building that are only 10 stories or so high. It's really a huge city.
Then we went to a small garden where they demonstrated a traditional tea ceremony for us.
There were a number of bonsai trees on display, several of which were more than 100 years old. I got video of them, but no photos.
Then we hopped on the bus and drove across to another garden, at which we were served a traditional BBQ lunch.
The black rectangles in the middle of the table are the cooking stones; think of it like an ancient Khanki.
We got back on the bus with full bellies, and drove to, and subsequently walked through, the Imperial Palace Plaza. This photo is as close as you can get to the actual grounds of the Imperial Palace. It is surrounded by a moat, and you have to pass through two gates to reach it:
Apparently it is open twice a year: on the Emperor's birthday, and on Jan 3 to celebrate New Year's.
The tour ended after a boat ride up one of the rivers that runs through the city, to an area named Asakusa, which has the most grand temple in Tokyo. The temple building is nice, but more impressive was the 5-tiered pagoda that was next to it:
At the temple, you can choose to pay 100 Yen to take your chance at learning your fortune. The tour leader warned us that many of the fortunes are bad, but I decided to take a shot anyway. Of course I got a bad fortune... :( One of the warnings was that I should not start any travels - too late to save me there! We were told that, if you get a bad fortune you should tie it to a tree near the temple, so your bad fortune will stay on the site and not follow you. I did that right away!
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