Tokyo
In Tokyo we were booked into the Tokyo Green Hotel at Awajicho which was within walking distance of the Japan Meteorological Agency which was at Takebashi, near the ground of the Imperial Palace.
We had two spells at the Tokyo Green Hotel. During the first, from the 13th to 24th April, I was involved in the seminar and workshop on IGOSS products (with the exception of the weekend of 20th/21st).
On the first Monday the Director General of the JMA hosted a reception for participants at which the ice for the drinks had been sourced from an Antarctic glacier! Sometime during that first period Nicky had a lesson in calligraphy (private Photo Gallery).
During the second period, from 30th April to 5th May, both myself and Nicky were able to visit places around Tokyo. One morning we got up early to visit the Tsukiji Fish market. It was an amazing sight but also quite appalling! To see so many fish taken from the ocean one really did wonder how long much longer could it last before the fish stocks were exhausted.
We went to a performance of the Kodō Drummers and also to a Kabuki Theatre. For the later you could rent earphone which provided an English commentary but, as far as I can remember, it didn’t make the performance any more understandable!
Photo Gallery: Kabuki Theatre and Theatre Posters…
Museums we visited included the Shitamachi Museum in Ueno and the Fukagawa Edo Museum in what is now the Kōtō district, both providing an insight into how Tokyo once was. I’ve created a document of the information sheets from the Shitamachi Museum [click to view Shitamachi Museum Information Sheets].
Photo Gallery: Shitamachi and Fukagawa Edo Museums…
Although Japanese cities, Tokyo especially, are large and crowded, districts within them still can have an intimate atmosphere. Below is a photo gallery of “street scenes” which I think might have been Tokyo, but equally could have been from one of the other cities we visited: Niigata, Sendai, Kyoto, or Nagano; and I have also created a separate gallery of scenes from a park, which I suspect was in Tokyo and also from Temple grounds [click to view Parks and Temple Grounds gallery].
Photo Gallery: Street Scenes…
Finally, a few mementoes from Tokyo.
Memento Gallery: Tokyo…