Tokyo - Day 2

On Day 2 we headed back into downtown Tokyo. The military has a very nice hotel that we were able to stay in near the embassy district and the Tokyo temple. We decided to spend 3 days there so we would be closer to the tourist destinations in Tokyo. Tokyo is a beautiful city that is SO CLEAN and has beautiful parks. In fact, there are no trash cans in public places because everyone carries their own trash and there is absolutely no litter anywhere. It was amazing!

We checked into the hotel, had lunch and then walked through the embassy district up to a beautiful park near the temple. I loved seeing the temple with the blossoms surrounding it. Beautiful. 

We spent a lot of time walking through the extensive grounds of the park and ended up at the playground to let the kids play.

I love this picture of Nate and Allen deep in conversation. It is so fun to see him interact with his brothers. 

Elizabeth and I walked the ground a bit more while the kids played.

 We got a big kick of out of all the funny English translations of the signage in Japan. Pretty funny stuff!

After the kids played for a long while we headed up to the temple. The temple is beautiful but on a tiny plot of land so there aren't a lot of grounds. There is also a few offices, a distribution center and apartments for temple workers and missionaries.

 Temple sign:

After seeing the temple we did a bit of a walking tour of downtown Tokyo to see the cherry blossoms. We ended up walking through a cemetery that had row after row of gorgeous blooming trees.

 I am fascinated by cemeteries and spent a lot of time walking through this one. I loved seeing the types of different monuments. Japan is split into two primary religions: Shinto and Buddhism. The monuments for each religion are slightly different. No bodies are buried in the cemeteries as most people in Japan are cremated so each plot has a memorial and a crypt to house the ashes.

A lot of the monuments had these wooden beams as part of the plot. Each beam represents a different deceased person and includes information like the new Buddhist name they receive at death, who the chief mourner for the person is (usually a family name), the death anniversary and sometimes other information about the deceased.

 After walking nearly 10 miles that day we headed back to the hotel for dinner. We decided to let the kids experience eating at a hibachi grill and they loved the opportunity to watch the chef prepare the food right in front of them. The food was so great and the kids loved every bit of it (including the sushi appetizer).

After dinner we let the kids play in the hotel pool for awhile before we headed to bed!