The Georges in Tokyo: Tokyo Tower and Zojoji Temple

After our first "night of sleep" (Interrupted by a slight play time at 2 a.m.) we decided to get up and head out to Toyko Tower. Larry (our host) was working that day and Christina had been here before and said it was a good place to visit.

"Quiet Simon Says"

The Kruses live within walking distance of two subway stations that we used to get around everywhere we decided to go that week. Pretty awesome! We walked down to Hiro-o, which was past Arisugawa park mentioned in the first post. The walk was a very nice one (downhill) and it took us about 15 minutes to get there. We had to make a stop at the Citi-Bank Branch to get our cash changed into yen, because many of the places do not accept credit and if they do there is a pretty steep transaction fee. The boys were getting a bit antsy, so we played a game of "Quiet Simon Says." Pretty hilarious!

Well, after all that we all got our fare cards, put some yen on them for our subway fare and went to wait for our train. Jack, who is seven, has apparently been obsessed with the trains and the whole subway system since arriving there in late December. I kid you not, this kid has been paying attention! He could recite the stops (and pronounce them perfectly) ahead of the voice over the intercom, tell you what stations you need to get off to switch trains to get to a specific location and beat the intercom telling people that the doors were closing soon. Really, REALLY impressive. And the "locals" really got a kick out of it too!

Waiting for our train at Hiro-o Station

Our trip on the subway was very successful, the boys behaved well, and we got to where we were going, thanks to our subway experts. Seriously, I don't know if it would have gone well AT ALL if they weren't there. The language barrier over there was much worse than I had expected. Sure, I have traveled overseas and to other countries, BUT, you couldn't phonetically figure out anything, and it seemed like the four things I could say in Japanese never would come out at the appropriate times.

There it is! 30 feet higher than the
Eifel Tower.

Tokyo Tower is a radio tower that resembles the Eifel Tower, only its orange.  We all enjoyed looking around and the boys loved the fast elevator ride up, looking out over the city and the small "amusement park" a few stories up that they got to play around in for a while.

Walking to Tokyo Tower

Neat!

The boys are ready to go up!

Cool Signage

The Fam.

Looking straight down

One view

Another...

                      

And yet another...you can see the
Rainbow Bridge in the distance. (barely)

Yay! Rides!

The big boys took the front on this ride.
Note the VERY SMALL chairs they are sitting on.

Also of note, the "BreadMan" thing on the back,
he had a cape and everything...

After we were done there, one of the landmarks that we could see from the Tower, was the Zojoji Temple. There were many buildings here and if you'd like more information about either of these tourist attractions you can visit this site I found: http://www.artisandevelopers.com/web/tokyo/ttower.htm

View of Zojoji Temple from the top of Tokyo Tower

Spencer posing in front of one of the buildings

Cool.

We explored here for a while because it was quite impressive. Apparently, it was founded in 1393 (!!!) and the main gate, which is still standing, was built in 1605. It was the only thing spared in the 1945 air raids by the U.S. The golden alter was really impressive and I wonder how much $$$ is stored there.

How much gold is this???

One thing that was really moving for me was the shrines to the stillborn children. These are statues of Jizobosatusu, the protector of the souls of stillborn children. (Apparently, its like a Buddist version of an angel) Mothers can dedicate one of these statues to a lost child and decorate it with crocheted bonnets and toys. I have known two people who are VERY close to me within the last couple of years lose children late in pregnancy and it was humbling to see how another culture deals with a loss as great as that.

A statue of Jizobosatusu decorated by a family who has lost a child before birth

I cannot say how many of these statues there were,
but they lined the whole grounds.
Thousands and thousands of them.

While there, we ran into a couple that my husband works with (another pilot and a flight attendant) who were coincidentally on our same flight over to Tokyo. We decided to try and meet up with them for dinner that night. That actually didn't end up working out, but Grandma Deb agreed to watch the boys at home while the other adults hit the town. We met Larry at a British Pub and found an excellent sushi place for dinner. Best. Sushi. Ever! YUM!!!

 This trip is fantastic!