Traveling to Tokyo

We spent last weekend in Tokyo for the Tokyo Marathon. (Matt ran the marathon and did really well, but I'll leave that story for him to tell.) The weather was rather chilly and it rained most of the weekend. However, we still did our best to see the city!

We took the Shinkansen, or bullet train, to Tokyo from Kobe. It is super fast and quiet and doesn't require reservations or security. However, it is more expensive than flying. The two girls are still free though, so we decided it was worth it!

The Hyatt that we stayed in had a beautiful lobby. The girls were obsessed with the chandeliers. The rooms were small but huge by Japanese standards!

We spent the first afternoon wandering the streets near our hotel. We found this sign. I'm not sure we were all feeling it at the time though. We were tired, cold and wet!

About 2/5 of Tokyo was burned to the ground during WWII. The city has been completely rebuilt over the years and the architecture is definitely whimsical! Here are a few of our favorite buildings:

This is the Asahi Beer Company building. That is supposed to be a golden flame to the right, not quite what it looked like to us!

The Big Sight building where the finish line for the marathon was located.

The Rocket Ship!

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government, building where the marathon started.

We also took a tour of a traditional Japanese garden, located in the heart of the city and went on a boat ride down the Sumida-gawa river. 

My favorite spot was the Senso-ji Buddist temple. The front entrance was a long street filled with vendors of every kind. I was a little scared that I'd lose the kids, but we managed to hold on to them! The temple itself was gorgeous! Here are some pictures of the outside.

However, according the the girls, the most important thing that we saw while we were in Tokyo were the gates to the Imperial Palace. The Japanese Emperor and his family still live in the palace and it is opened to the public only two times a year. However, a real, alive, 8 year old princess lives there!!!! (We've seen a number of Japanese castles and they've been very disappointed that no one lives in them any more. We looked at pictures of Princess Aiko online. They didn't really approve of the fact that she often wears regular clothes. Apparently they think princesses should wear ball gowns at all times! 

The real highlight of the weekend was Matt's marathon on Sunday. Despite the cold and the rain, it was a very cool event to watch (especially from the comfort of our hotel room...the room overlooked the starting line!)

Monday morning we headed back to Kobe. Despite all of our experiences, I think we are all very glad to be back!