Follow in the footsteps of a recent traveler to Japan's most famous city - Tokyo. Latha who visitied Japan reveals the sights, sounds, and excitement of visiting Japan. Let's begin.
I had chalked out a day tour and especially a walking tour a couple of friends joined me. It started with visiting Asakusa an old locality of Tokyo with its temple, souvenir shops etc. One of my friends bought a traditional Japanese kite for his son here and this is a good place to shop for gifts to take back home. The most eye-catching characteristic of this place is again the people, the really older lot of Japanese walking around and it is a different experience from the younger and westernized Japanese that we saw everywhere.
From Asakusa I went on to the imperial palace grounds and entered via the historical eastern gardens. We had planned to exit via the imperial palace plaza, which opens out, from the front gate of the palace. We spent some time at the eastern garden that contains Sannomoru Shosakan, the famed museum of the Imperial Collection. This displays a fantastic collection of paintings and including a magnificent ceramic piece. Each one of them has a history of birthday, wedding, wedding anniversary of some Emperor or the other. But some of the pieces made of silk and ceramic were simply breathtaking. Some of these pieces with unique motifs that would only be used for auspicious events of the Imperial family, or have unordinary sizes or shapes. We also crossed the three of the remaining guardhouses where Samurai warriors of yesteryears protected their Majesty and his family. I was just reflecting that to protect this kind of lifestyle no king would hesitate killing of a few hundreds or thousands of enemies.
Yurikamome
We marched ahead to Tokyo subway to take a train to Shimbashi from where a monorail service is operated to go around the island that is the latest addition to Tokyo City. This line is called Yurikamome or Tokyo Rinkai Shin-Kotsu line. Though it is called monorail it runs on twin rails and there are two trains to do the rounds in both the directions. We bought a round trip ticket costing 800 yens. We boarded the train and what do we see, "Madras Shoes" we whooped with delight in the tradition of true Madrasis. We were looking excitedly here and there and saw the famed Rainbow Bridge that connects the island with the city on road. This bridge is quite like the Golden Bridge or the bridge in Sydney that runs parallel to the Harbour Bridge. The view from the train is fantastic and we were crossing the sea to get into the island.
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