We packed our bags and drove to the New Sanno Hotel in Tokyo Friday night to spend the weekend filled with swimming and sightseeing. It was a weekend for Megan to get her mind of her upcoming surgery on Tuesday. We waited what seemed like forever for Don to get home from work on Friday, luckily I talked Kyle into taking a nap on Friday after swimming (which he rarely ever does anymore, thank goodness the heat and swimming tires him out). With directions and toll money in hand we braved the open Japanese roads. The first time we went to the New Sanno we went by Train. We were doing excellent getting their until it said "at the OI toll pay 700 yen", we were on the Shuto Expressway, which we hadn't been before, trying to get to Rainbow Bridge and the sun was starting to set and all of a sudden we see an exit off of the expressway that says "OI" we started wondering is this our exit? Do we get off or do we stay on and the OI Toll will be straight ahead? Since you have like 10 seconds to make a decision on the roads here, Don swerved to the left and we got off. In my limited Japanese I tried to ask the Japanese man at the toll booth were we on the right way to the Rainbow Bridge? We showed him our directions. He said 700 yen please. We paid him our 700 yen and then he pulled out a map, had us pull over and told us we had got off the wrong exit. Luckily, Don could understand the map. We drove up the road about 1/4 mile and there was another on ramp with a toll bridge which was the one we were supposed to get off on, we hopped back on paid another 700 yen to go through the tunnel and we were back on course. We made it over the Rainbow Bridge to set in Tokyo traffic for about 20 minutes. We finally arrived at our hotel about 730pm, checked into our room on the 7th floor and ate dinner about 8pm which is so late for our family. The kids were upset that there was no pool that night, but we made up for it the rest of the weekend. Here are some pictures from our weekend in Tokyo.
Saturday morning after swimming and breakfast we took a train to visit Meiji shrine. It was about 90 degrees and humid on Saturday. They had a iris garden there but unfortunately they had already bloomed and were gone. The Meiji Shrine is one of Tokyo's biggest shrines and was established to honor Emperor Meiji. While we were there a Japanese couple was having a traditional Japanese wedding in Kimono's. The bride wore here Kimono and then her bridal Kimono. The guests and bridal party would keep following them back and forth through the shrine. Kyle asked one of the Japense if they kissed and she said "oh, no!". There were lots of tourists taking pictures, even other Japanese so I didn't feel bad.
These are empty casks that are used to fill Japanese sake.
Here are Don and the kids under a Torii Gate on our path to the shrine.
Here we are cleansing our hands before we enter the shrine.
Here is the Meiji Shrine built in 1920.
Here are pictures of the wedding ceremony. The one on the left is the bride and groom. The bride before her wedding kimono. The ones that follow the bride is wearing her wedding kimono and a picture of the wedding party that follows her back and forth, it seemed like every 5 minutes they walked from one side of the shrine courtyard to the other. The picture is a little fuzzy, everytime I went to take a picture of her someone always walked in front of my camera.
After visiting the shrine we went back to the hotel for some much needed food and swimming. Then off again to visit the Tokyo Tower. The Tokyo Tower is 333 meters tall. Interesting fact...It is taller than the Eiffel Tower which is only 320 meters. We went right as the sun was going down and got some good shots. Although, everytime we got up somewhere high for a view it's always so hazy/smoggy we never get a view of Mt. Fuji, which was the case this time too.
Here is a glass window they have in the floor. I had both Megan and Kyle (eventhough they were scared they were going to fall through), sit on the window so I could take their picture so you could see the bottom of the tower.
The view at night was great. Aren't these pictures Don took Awesome?
We packed our bags and drove to the New Sanno Hotel in Tokyo Friday night to spend the weekend filled with swimming and sightseeing. It was a weekend for Megan to get her mind of her upcoming surgery on Tuesday. We waited what seemed like forever for Don to get home from work on Friday, luckily I talked Kyle into taking a nap on Friday after swimming (which he rarely ever does anymore, thank goodness the heat and swimming tires him out). With directions and toll money in hand we braved the open Japanese roads. The first time we went to the New Sanno we went by Train. We were doing excellent getting their until it said "at the OI toll pay 700 yen", we were on the Shuto Expressway, which we hadn't been before, trying to get to Rainbow Bridge and the sun was starting to set and all of a sudden we see an exit off of the expressway that says "OI" we started wondering is this our exit? Do we get off or do we stay on and the OI Toll will be straight ahead? Since you have like 10 seconds to make a decision on the roads here, Don swerved to the left and we got off. In my limited Japanese I tried to ask the Japanese man at the toll booth were we on the right way to the Rainbow Bridge? We showed him our directions. He said 700 yen please. We paid him our 700 yen and then he pulled out a map, had us pull over and told us we had got off the wrong exit. Luckily, Don could understand the map. We drove up the road about 1/4 mile and there was another on ramp with a toll bridge which was the one we were supposed to get off on, we hopped back on paid another 700 yen to go through the tunnel and we were back on course. We made it over the Rainbow Bridge to set in Tokyo traffic for about 20 minutes. We finally arrived at our hotel about 730pm, checked into our room on the 7th floor and ate dinner about 8pm which is so late for our family. The kids were upset that there was no pool that night, but we made up for it the rest of the weekend. Here are some pictures from our weekend in Tokyo.
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