More Birthday,the Imperial Palace, and an Earthquake!

Well, it’s been a fun couple of days here in Japan! On Tuesday night, Mike’s co-workers offered to take us out to welcome us to Japan. We also ended up celebrating my birthday.  It was the most fun I’ve had yet! We went to dinner at a restaurant that gave you a ton of courses of food and unlimited drinks for a set price.  The restaurant had a bunch of levels, but it was all open, so it was like there were little treehouses everywhere. You took your shoes off and sat on cusions on the floor.  It was really cozy, and really fun! The food was fantastic, there was only one course that we couldn’t eat because it was shrimp, and then there was a fish course that mike couldn’t eat (but I did, and it was FANTASTIC!).  On top of that we had two different kinds of salad, some amazing chicken, and marinated pork.  Then, his co-workers arranged for the restaurant to sing happy birthday to me, and they brought me this plate, with delicious dessert samples.  They turned the lights in the restaurant off and played “Happy Birthday To you” over the speakers.  It was AWESOME! I’m pretty sure I didn’t stop smiling the whole night. 

Here's the view from our table area, it was a long skinny restaurant, with the kitchen down below, and then straight across was another table. 

 My birthday treats!

  Then we went to Karaoke, and on the way stopped at a picture booth.  I couldn’t figure out why my eyes looked so huge, and they told me that the software on the picture booths here is designed to make your eyes bigger.  Crazy, right?  So once we got the pictures, we ended up going to Karaoke, where they give you your own room, and you get drinks and snacks delivered to it.  It was so much fun! I sang a lot (I’m sure not well), and so did everyone else. Mike’s co-workers were pretty good! Here's us getting to the Karaoke place...Mike photobombing the picture...

 Here's the Karaoke screen, and then everyone had little hand held computer controller things that you could scroll through the songs with:

 Here's the crew, as we were leaving for the train station:

Then, we got on the last train home, which was lucky.  We were very tired after all of our festivities!   We had such a fun night though!

 The next day, Wednesday, I had a reservation to tour the Imperial Palace Grounds.  I had to take a subway line that I wasn’t familiar with, so I left really early, which was good because it took me an hour to get there! So much walking!  In order to get into the palace grounds, you have to complete an application online, and then they have to approve you.  Once you’re approved, you get a permit that you can print off, and then you bring it and are checked in by the police.  It was all very official, and they tried to get us to walk in lines of four throughout the whole tour, and the police guarded all sides of the group the whole time…I wasn’t excited about that, it felt like we were being marched off to a work camp or something. I met some Americans in the group, so it was nice to visit with someone in English!  The palace grounds were very beautiful, and it was free, so despite the rigid rules, I can’t complain.  Most of the palace was completely destroyed in the war, so it’s been rebuilt, but there were a few keeps and towers that were still intact.  The imperial family still lives here, which is why there was so much security.  The tour was in Japanese, but they gave us some English audio guides that we could listen to along the way.  

The entire tour took around 90 minutes, and was about 2 miles long.  It was a really nice day out, so I definitely enjoyed it.

 Here’s some of the gates as you walk in, and the moat around the castle…pretty cool, right?  

 Then there’s one of the stone walls that was built by feudal lords, who carved in their family crests to the wall. 

 Then we came across Fujimi-yagura, which is a three storied keep, reconstructed in 1659.  It was a watch tower, and it’s said that you can see Mt. Fuji from the top story.  It’s one of the oldest remnants of Edo Castle, and is about 15.5 meters high, with the rampart below it measuring 15.5 meters high.  Can you imagine the rampart being built, stone by stone, and keeping the building up all these years?  Crazy!

Then we came across Fujimi-tamon Defence-house, which they told us was built for both defense and decorative purposes…it also was used as a repository and armory.

 Here’s some more of the big stone walls, which I thought were so cool looking.  Below, I was trying to get a picture of the spider webs that were covering this whole bush.  It was crazy!

 Here we have the actual palace.  It was completed in 1968 after the Edo palace was bombed in WWII. The whole palace consists of 7 buildings, including Chowaden Reception Hall, which is behind the plaza that you can see below.  The plaza is called Kyuden Totei Plaza, and on New Year’s day and the Emperor’s Birthday, the Emperor and Empress and members of the Imperial family stand on a balcony outside the corridor and receive the greetings of the people gathered in the plaza(these are the only two days in the year where the palace is open to the public). Then the Emperor delivers an address.

This garden was next to the palace, and those giant shrubs you can see are made up of 50 different kinds of trees….crazy, right?!

 Then we were ushered across a bridge, where they told us that we were to walk single-file down the bridge and not stop to take pictures…no one listened though, so I stopped to take some pictures:

The bridge was really cool, it’s called Seimon-tetsubashi Bridge or Nijubashi for short. 

  Behind the bridge was the Fushimi-yagura keep, which was moved here from the Fushimi-castle in Kyoto piece by piece in the 17^th century because the Shogun Iemitsu liked it.  Can you believe that?  It was huge! I can’t imagine how they did that and then reconstructed it.  You would think it would be easier to just build a duplicate if the Shogun liked it that much, but I guess that’s how they did it.

 Here's me!

  We headed back the way we came, and this time got to see a better view of the Hasuikebori, which is at the foot of the high stone wall I was taking pictures of before.  It’s a moat, that is filled with lotus flowers, the big green area you see below.  The flowers weren’t blooming yet, but I’m told they are going to in July, so maybe I’ll have to take my parents back.

Then here’s some final pictures of the moat surrounding the castle, and we were back in Tokyo. 

After the tour, I headed back to the apartment, and ended up resting up and taking a little nap (I was still really tired from the night before!!). Then, Mike got home and we ended up going to the Italian restaurant with the guy from Spain that I mentioned before (Although he wasn’t there, but they remembered us!).  We had a FANTASTIC pizza, that was gorgonzola cheese with maple syrup poured over the top.  Sounds weird, but it was so good! I told Mike I could have eaten another!  It was kind of awkward though, the people sitting right next to us were either fighting or breaking up, and they were speaking in English (mostly) so we got to hear what was happening.  The girl was crying a lot…I told Mike, “Dinner and a show!”

Then, we ended up going grocery shopping and calling it an early night.  Today I’m just working on my wedding registry (turns out that all of the bakeware I registered for is being discontinued!), and working on plans for when my family gets here…I can’t wait!! This weekend, we’re going to head to Yokohama and Odaiba Island, both on the ocean.  

As I was typing this up, I experienced my first earthquake, it was relatively small here, but it's epicenter was by Fukushima-where the nuclear plant is- and it was a 4 on the Richter scale there.  Only a 1 or 2 here.  Mike called to say he felt it at the factory, too. 

Anyways, it’s Mike’s birthday on Saturday, and our new friends from Mike’s work offered to take us out on Friday night.  I can’t wait! It’s such a fun group of people.  One great feature of this group is Kris, who is American but lives and works here in Japan, so he is able to translate for us with his Japanese co-workers.  Such a fun group!