Pandas

A major tourist attraction in Tokyo is the Asakusa Shrine which honors the three men who founded the nearby Senso-ji.

I thought this was cool.  The citizens of a city in Japan got together to make this huge rope sandal, which hangs on the wall of one of buildings.

As at all Shinto shrines, you can get your fortune.  First make a donation of 100 yen.  Then shake the canister and pull out a stick.

On the stick will be printed a number.  Then find the drawer with the corresponding number and you get your fortune.

YES!!  I thought everyone got good fortunes, but when Onions did his, it was mediocre.  The tradition is when you don't get a good fortune, you tie it to one of the strings nearby so you don't carry it away with you.

The shrine complex was packed with people, combine that with our general lack of interest in shrines, Onions and I departed within a half hour.  We decided to head over to Ueno Park for a stroll.

As we are enjoying the park, I see a sign for a panda.  It turns out that the Tokyo Zoo is located in Ueno park AND it's home to a couple pandas.  Our plan was to simply go in and see the pandas and leave, but we spent the rest of the afternoon at the zoo.  It was unexpectedly a total blast.

I apparently most closely resemble a panda bear.  And to me, Onions' spirit animal is the penguin.

Onions likes penguins and this is the first time he's seen penguins live.

'roo porn!

Hippos in Chinese are translated to "river horse."

Ever seen the inside of a hippos mouth?  Now you have.

Fugu.....PUFFERFISH!

Sushi

In Kyoto, on the road between Ryoan-ji and Ginkaku, Onions was able to read that this was a sushi restaurant that offered plates of sushi for 100 yen, or about 90 cents.

Just like the "sushi boat" restaurants in the United States, plates of sushi work their way around the restaurant.

You like something, pick it up and eat!

What's this green powder.....wasabi?  Nope, it's to make green tea.  There is a hot water dispenser right at your table.

This is fresh wasabi.

And it's potency is greater than all of us who eat the wasabi made from the powder.

Another feature is that above your table is an electronic menu.  If there is something you want right away, or doesn't come on the conveyor belt, you can press a button.....

.....and within a few minutes your order comes whizzing to your table on the upper conveyor belt.

We ate like kings....and came back for dinner a second time the following evening.

Hakone and the Quest to see Mr. Fuji

Kyoto to Tokyo......

....goofing around on the train!

We had a quest to see Mt. Fuji, which is about an hour west of metropolitan Tokyo.  We decided to spend the day in the Hakone area.  We arrived in Odawara and then took a cute little train up to Hakone.  However,  just short of the town of Hakone is an open air art museum.  With art spread over a few acres with beautiful views of the mountains, it was a great opportunity to stretch our legs and breath some fresh air.

The Hakone Open Air Art Museum has a collection of works by Picasso, but they are housed in a building.

So much Henry Moore.....why????

After a quick lunch in Hakone, the next portion of the journey was in a gondola/cable car/funicular up to the highest point in the Hakone area.  At this point, we were supposed to see Mt. Fuji, but alas, it was hidden in the clouds.

The next gondola had us descend down to Lake Ashi.  From here we took a nice boat ride to the other side of the lake.

As we were docking at Hakone-machi I looked back and Mt. Fuji made an appearance!  You have to look closely to see the outline, but it's there.  We successfully completed our quest!

I was hungry on the train ride to Tokyo so I purchased one of these beautifully wrapped boxes of food.  You think it looks good from the outside....

You open the box and you get this beautiful presentation!

So this picture of Mt. Fuji was taken about a week later when I was taking the train back to Tokyo to catch my flight back to China!