yesterday we walked up to the Tokyo National Museum. it was strange to see so many historical objects and artworks with no Christian references anywhere. aside from the pics below, there was one especially beautiful painted screen and a scroll passed down in secret by horse doctors, "depicting medicinal herbs for treating horses and the guardian deities of horse doctors."
we walked past a couple more shrines and through a graveyard to a nearby metro station, where we got to use our JR passes for the first time. we got out at Shinjuku station and had donuts, then walked over to Meiji Jingu shrine inside the monumentally spectacular Yoyogi Park (not sure the photos do it justice). we saw a water ceremony being performed, then had to take shelter from a sudden thunderstorm under the wooden structure.
from there, we walked east to Harajuku, got fried dumplings, and checked out some crazy shops filled with the sounds of clashing jingles and shouting robot toys. then down to Shibuya, where we crossed at the world's busiest pedestrian intersection.
we hunted down a cool mural called "The Myth of Tomorrow" by Taro Okamoto inside the labyrinthine Shibuya station, and finally decided our feet had had enough, so we headed home to eat some grocery store salads and plan today's post-Tokyo adventures.
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| front lobby of the Gallery of Horyuji Treasures |
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| RinnÅ-ji Buddhist temple |
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| Yanaka cemetary |
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| Yoyogi park |
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| Meiji Jingu |
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| Shibuya Crossing, from above |
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| our airbnb apartment: the fish-eye effect makes it look bigger than it is |
Great photos! I love the fish panel. Is it embroidered? silk?
ReplyDeletedefinitely embroidered, probably silk but we're not certain! it was the sash for a kimono.
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