Tokyo Trip - Part II

After my last post, I spent a few hours walking around Tokyo. On my walk, I walked north to the Meiji Jingu Shrine, which is a Shinto shrine dedicated to Emperor Meiji and his wife, Empress Shōken, who passed in 1912 and 1914. The Meiji shrine is covered by man-made forest that consists of 120,000 trees of 365 different species, which were donated by people from all parts of Japan when the shrine was established. The Meiji shrine is well known for weddings. While I there, I was lucky enough to see a traditional Japanese wedding occurring. I've included a few pictures of the Meiji Jingu shrine and the wedding procession below.

One of the many gates entering the Meiji Shrine forest

Self-pic in Meiji forest

Meiji Shrine

Prayers left by visitors (on wooden blocks)

Wedding Procession

Wedding Party

After visiting the shrine, I continued north to Shinjuku, which is one of the 23 special wards of Tokyo. It is a major commercial and administrative centre, housing the busiest train station in the world (Shinjuku Station) and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, the administration centre for the government of Tokyo. I was hungry so I decided to get some food and opted for sushi. It was relatively inexpensive for sushi and especially for meals in Tokyo. Not suprisingly, it was the best sushi I've ever had. 

After lunch, I headed back to my hotel to pick up my bags (which they held for me) and then met up with Matt (the guy I am staying with tonight and Saturday). We had a quick beer, then went to his place in Minato-ku. Matt and his partner's place is a cute little neighborhood and a really nice place.  It is a pencil house (very Japanese in terms of style) with four floors, including a roof deck with a fantastic view. They even have a guestroom, which is more than twice the size of my apartment in Hong Kong. Looks like I'm getting the royal treatment here in Tokyo. 


I was also able to meet Matt's partner, LD, whom I haven't met before. Matt and LD met in Hong Kong 5+ years ago and moved to Tokyo together three years ago. Matt works for JP Morgan, which is located in central Tokyo. After a bit of chatting , Matt, LD and I headed out for dinner to Jackpot, an Oyster bar meets Italian restaurant. We also met up with their friends, Andrew and Kentaro, who are both interesting people. Andrew is from Australia and is a lawyer here in Tokyo. Kentaro (KK for short) is from Tokyo and works for Dom Perignon. Kentaro's English is amazingly good and will be moving to Paris very soon to continue working for Dom Perignon. The group was sad to see Kentaro leaving Tokyo, but also excited for him. This meant that our dinner was filled with a lot of eating and drinking. I didn't know a lick of Japanese so I left the ordering to the Matt and the group. I don't remember exactly what I had, but it was all very good. 


Justin