Today, Saturday Oct 8th, we took a tour bus from Ikego Base, picked up other passengers in Yokosuka Base, and then took a quick day-tour of Tokyo.

It was called “Tokyo Highlights” and the stops were Meijijingu, a shrine built and dedicated to Emporer Meiji and his wife Empress Shoken, Tokyo Tower, and Asakusa.

(Emporer Meiji was the one who rose to power and helped to transform the society of Japan from that of the Tokugawa Shogunate to the much more modern Japan of today, embracing western technologies and so on.)

Tokyo Tower was interesting, but sadly the 250 meter observation deck was out for renovations apparently, so we were only able to visit the first 150 meter observation area.

I was able to take some pretty decent pictures, but it was raining that day, so many of the more long distance pictures are blurred out or we were unable to see any great distances.

Meijijingu Shrine:

Tokyo Tower:

Mario Kart on the streets of Tokyo! (Yes, you can rent and drive them on the streets of Tokyo. Not sure about cost, or anything, but we saw them pass by on the way to the Tower.)

Asakusa:

Asakusa is a giant buddhist temple, but like many in Japan you will find both Japanese Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples either sharing the same grounds, or very near to each other.

Asakusa had a small shinto shrine near the side entrance we came in from. In addition, many women were wearing Yukata (lightweight Kimono). There’s also a large souvenir shopping district out front of the main entrance.

Sadly, the 5-story Pagoda was being renovated when we visited, so it was covered in plastic and scaffolding and couldn’t get any pictures of it.

This last picture I found interesting. I learned later that it’s a buddhist symbol which is why it’s found here and although it has negative connotations in the West (ie. Nazi Germany) in the East it’s a peaceful symbol.

The end of Saturday was spent checking out the “blue lights” of Zushi. Apparently they have blue hue UV-type lights on poles next to the beach that they turn on at the end of the summer season for 3 nights, from around 6PM to 8PM.

I took pictures, but night-time pictures always require absolute stillness due to the length of time the shutter needs to stay open to capture decent light and sadly, my hands could not stay steady that long when there’s wind blowing and unsteady sand, so the majority of them came out blurry. Made me wish I’d really packed my camera’s tripod, but I just didn’t have the room.

Here are some of the better pictures I was able to get out of the first night:

That rounded off a nice long day of sightseeing and generally having a great time.