Another interesting building near where I'm staying is the 50 story Tokyo Cocoon Tower. It's full name is actually Tokyo Mode Gakuen Cocoon tower. Gakuen means school in Japanese and the building does have three schools inside it: A fashion school, a school of design and technology as well as a medical college.
Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building is the seat of the Tokyo Prefectural Government. Prefecture are sort of the equivalent of states although Japan is not a Federation like Australia. Japan has 47 Prefectures, including Tokyo, each with a an elected Governor in charge. The building also has a free viewing platform on the 45th floor, some 202 metres above the ground.
Just outside my hotel is Shinjuku Chuo Park, also known as Shinjuku Central Park.
Another museum in Ueno Park is the National Museum of Science and Nature, which has a life sized statue of a Blue Whale outside.
The Tokyo National Museum in Ueno Park currently has a display of 500 netsuke from the collection of the late Prince Takamado. Netsuke are miniatures that were used to fasten various types of containers from the sash of a kimono. They are intricately carved from materials like wood or ivory and are quite beautiful. Couldn't take any photos of the netsuke but I did by some books.
There were planters of tulips around the pond in Ueno Park. If you normally associate tulips with the Netherlands rather than Japan, you might be surprised that the two countries have a 400 year old connection. Dutch trade with Japan started around 1600 and they were the only European country to be permitted to trade with Japan between 164` and 1853
The leaves of the Ginko trees in Ueno Park have turned yellow. A fun fact about Ginko trees is that they are a living fossil that date back to the Jurassic period when Dinosaurs walked the earth. A not so fun fact is that the fruit of Ginko has a not very nice smell. The nut in the fruit is edible when cooked, like cashews. The Ginko trees in Ueno park are not as old as the Dinosaurs though but are still pretty.
Ueno Park was once a temple complex called Kanei-ji, founded in 1625 to protect the North-East of old Edo Castle. During the civil war in 1868 most of Kanei-ji was destroyed, although Kiyomizu Kannondo escaped along with a five story pagoda. In 1873 the grounds of Kanei-ji were made into a public park. The pagoda is now part of Ueno Zoo, while Kiyomizu is in the park itself
It's autumn in Japan and there is a nice view of the leaves in Shinjuku Central Park from my window.
Nishi-Shinjuku means west Shinjuku, and is west of Shinjuku railway station, which has the honour of being the busiest train station in the world with over 3.5 million people using it each day.
A note to those who have seen the movie "Lost in Translation", the hotel that the stars of the movie where staying at was the Park Hyatt, which is the the tall building on the left of the hotel.
Took a little while to get through immigration and customs. They've upgraded their camera/finger print scanners at immigration but it seems like there was at least two planeloads arriving at the same time. After getting the train into Tokyo, I arrived at my hotel in Shinjuku about 8 pm. Nice room
Crossing the Japanese coast near Tokyo. Looks like we will be landing around 30 minutes late but at least I'm back. ただいまー
My flight left about half an hour late. The weather in Japan doesn't look that much different today.
