A walk in Tokyo (東京散歩)

Using my new Tokyo walks magazine I went for a walk on Sunday. First I had to decipher some of the Kanji!

Headed to Northern Tokyo. They have trams up here.

This is the grave of a famous Japanese writer, Natsume Soseki. 夏目漱石

Back in the day, they wrote the name backwards. That's natsu (夏 summer）on the right, me (目 eye) on the left. Summer Eye, good name for a writer.

護国寺(Gokoku Ji) A 17th Century Buddhist Temple, one of the only ones not to be destroyed during the war.

I liked the roof.

This grave was better than Soseki's.

A Japanese garden.

Met this little lady in the Gardens. Apparently she is the goddesses of handicrafts like tea ceremony and cooking...

...and PC (パソコン)—that's computers; not being careful with your gender-specific terminology. I guess if you're a goddess these things aren't hard to pick up.

This is a marriage hotspot too. Here are two for the price of one.

Navigating my way around using the magazine was good fun, and got myself immersed in the language. There was a little museum at the end of the course with some Buddhist artifacts that had been collected over the years. All the signage in there was only in Japanese too. I actually found myself being able to read some of the signs in their entirety, which was a good feeling. This is a stone statue of the seated Buddha from the Tang Dynasty in China (8th Century). It's well old!