Goodbye Tokyo...

It's time for me to leave Tokyo and move on, so I've been visiting some of the places I've yet to see. Here's a few pictures from  the museums, the Sky Tree and around the place:

Towards Shinjuku (left background) and Ikebukuro (right background)

Looking through the glass floor

Very hard to capture the detail properly without a very good camera!

Sky Tree's highest publicly-accessible point

Asakusa

Edo-Tokyo Museum Recreation

Shinagawa

From the Tokyo Museum of Modern Art

Imperial Palace Moat near Takebashi

Here's a collection of photos from my snow trip to Shiga Kogen in the Japanese Alps (with the 'snow village'), my first Japanese baseball game, sushi in Tsukiji (near the fish market) and the Japanese Cherry Blossom season, which I was lucky to catch:

Chidorigafuchi, on the perimeter moat of the Imperial Palace

Chidorigafuchi

Meguro River

Chidorigafuchi

Chidorigafuchi at Night

Yomiuri Giants -v- Tohoku Eagles

Tokyo Dome City's attractions

Shiga Kogen Ski Resort

Snow Village outside the Beer Festival

Sushi near Tsukiji fish market

These signs on trains and in public areas tell people how to behave in pretty amusing and over-explained ways. For some reason Japan Tobacco is behind it, I don't get their angle....

The prospect of the crying cigarette is probably the funniest!

One of many in a long series

A serious issue

I discovered Hibiya Park near the office the other day, impressed that they keep the space for this in the middle of everything:

We went to a Ninja-themed restaurant in Akasaka last week, complete with a labyrinth adventure entrance, costumed servers, a magic show and ninja-themed food (I think the marshmallow part is the ninja!):

This is the main street of Akihabara (electronics town), totally open to pedestrians on Sunday:

In light of the horsemeat scandal in Europe, I'd like to point out how delicious this raw horsemeat sushi is:

It's been so long since I posted last that I've decided to start doing smaller posts to stop me procrastinating! Here's some pictures from this month, including my snowboarding trip to Hakuba near Nagano, West of Tokyo:

We stayed in the 'Echoland' area of Hakuba, which seemed to be almost all foreigners, mostly Australians so it was great craic

The snow was incredible - all powder; it didn't stop snowing for our first three days, making the snowboarding bails a little less painful

Snow sculptures outside the office were a great novelty, until Tokyo was hit with the most snow in (apparently) 15 years a day later:

[From the office window]

New Year's, as in the first three days of January more than the 31st of December, is a really significant event in Japan. There's not much drinking going on unless you're a foreigner, as most people go to a Shrine to wish for good fortune.

I headed to Meiji Jingu, one of the most popular Shrines, on NYE for the countdown. There must have been tens of thousands of people, and we all queued up for a long time to reach the shrine itself, a good experience:

After Kyoto, we moved on to the smaller city of Nara, and stayed in the most traditional-style accommodation of the trip (the one from the photos above). The city was spacious and peaceful, with a huge park full of shrines, monuments etc on its Eastern side. Over 1200 very friendly deer roam free in the park and the parts of the city close to it.

Nara Park

Isuien Garden - said to 'borrow scenery' from the hills and building behind it.

The imposing and impressive figures below guard the entrance to Todai-ji temple:

Todai-ji Temple, which houses the world's largest bronze Buddha (Daibutsu) statue:

Various pictures of sights and gardens around Nara:

By the pond in Nara City

We took the Shinkansen (Bullet Train) from Kobe back to Tokyo, great experience for a train freak like me!

Check out how the speed bent the houses in the foreground of the picture above

Finally, three of my favourite pictures from a very successful Kansai trip, thanks for reading! More from Tokyo in the next post...