Japan 2025

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Downside of the season: cold and rainy. Upside of the season: cherry blossoms!

Tokyo doesn't offer much in the way of antiquities but the Meiji shrine and its surrounding park are a green oasis of tranquility surrounded by city.

Tokyo has lots of tall buildings but I particularly appreciate the NTT Docomo building for its 1930 New York vibe. I converted the image to grayscale but on another cold rainy day there wasn't much hue in the picture anyway.

A group of young ladies in Asakusa. Before you get too excited, I'm pretty sure they're all tourists.

Asakusa at night.

Doesn't look very Japanese? Actually this is the interior of Magellan's restaurant in the Tokyo DisneySea park, themed to Portuguese exploration. This was my first visit to this park---Disneylands exist around the world but DisneySea exists only in Tokyo. I must say I was really impressed with the design and execution of the park. For example, most theme parks have fake mountains and fake caves with fake rocks but Tokyo DisneySea has the most realistic fake rocks and grandest fake caves I have ever seen. Most visitors probably won't notice it consciously but it really aids the suspension of disbelief. I also learned later from Google Maps that a road cuts straight across the middle of the park but it is camouflaged so smoothly that one never suspects it is there. 

Change of location---ocean scenery near Nagasaki.

View from our hotel window in Nagasaki.

Exterior shot of Haneda airport.

Japanese commuter train on the Sobu Line with cherry blossoms. Commuter trains never looked this good.

Creepy autonomous chair at Haneda airport. I, for one, welcome our new chair overlords and would like to point out I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground slipcover factories.