Day 2 in Tokyo

Okay,　Tokyo has not been a highlight on my list in Japan. Probably has to do with the weather which has been raw and cold. Today we walked around in the rain but it finally let up so we just had to carry the umbrellas (generously loaned by the hostel) around for the day. We started out going to a station to line up our tickets for the bus tomorrow out to the Hakone/Mt. Fuji area. The weather is supposed to be sunny for the next 3 days so we`re hoping!! We will meet up first thing in the afternoon with two friends of Sr. Trai Nghiem - a friend of Doug`s. Hopefully they can explain a bit about the area and what there is to see. We hope to do some hiking (not too much as my feet are ACHING!) and find one or more onsens to soak in with the beautiful views!  We then went to another station to line up our ticket to Kamakura after Mt. Fuji on Tuesday just for one night. It`s a local train so we didn`t need to book a seat. With all those travel details taken care of, we were off to the Imperial Palace. It`s the largest palace grounds in the world, they say. But you really can`t get past the bridge so we just took some pictures. It`s a very peaceful place in the center of the government buildings surrounding it. Lovely grounds and moats. As we walked around the moat on our way to a controversial shrine, tons of runners out enjoying the rain letup passed us. I think there must be a race or marathon or something they were all training for. After way more walking than we thought, we arrived at the Yasukuni Shrine - a Shinto shrine dedicated to the war dead. There is a statue of the guy in the 1800s who started the Red Cross Society in Japan. But there are also memorials to 14 Japanese (considered by an American tribunal) war criminals including the General Tojo. And so apparently there are frequent protests here when officials leave wreaths, memorials, etc. at this shrine. There was a museum with further info on the wars in Japan with lots of gruesome pictures so we opted out of that. It`s also controversial because of things like calling the Rape of Nanjing in 1936 where over 300,000 residents were slaughtered as the "Nanking Incident." This gets the Chinese riled up! When I was teaching in China 7 years ago, I remember the Chinese were upset because a new Japanese history textbook had been adopted here that really made light of many of the WWII atrocities. We then made our way to a train station and went to the Akihabara Electric area - a geeky area where you can shop for anything electronic in both big stores and little shops. We found a store that had the Japanese toilet seats you could buy and take home - they were $700+ so I unhappily let that one go! Maybe I can buy one online when I get home. They are made by Sanyo. They had iPads for around $670 but decided NOT. If something goes wrong, you want the store nearby. We then headed back to our hostel as it was dark, stopping at good old 7-11 (where you can buy all kinds of hot and prepared foods, as well as ATM) and bought some dinner to bring back here. In for the night!! We also got a ticket for the Narita Express train on Thursday to take us to the airport for our flight home. I`m excited!  My feet are looking forward to a nice long SIT!!!