A Day at the Temple

Sorry, no Internet yesterday. It seems to be fixed today!

Yesterday we toured the Diet, which is the Japanese parliment. The building was beautiful! It was built in a French Provincial style, butthe government is based on the British parlimentary style. Interesting European influences there.

After our tour, we had a traditional tempura lunch, sitting on the floor in our socks and everything! The food was amazing, although we weren't sure how to eat a lot of it. We had miso soup with no spoons, (I hope we were just supposed to sip from the bowl, because that's what we did!) salad, tempura shrimp and veggies and various other things that I don't know the name of.

Then we went to Akasaka Temple, which is the only remaining combination Shinto and Buddist temple area in Tokyo. It was the first day of the Chrysanthemum Festival, so it was crowded. There are a lot of shops selling good luck charms and other trinkets on the way to the shrines. The shrines themselves were amazing. There was a five story Buddist temple, but we couldn't enter because of the festival. There were a lot of small Shinto shrines, and there were two big insence burners. People would was their hands in a fountain, then waft the smoke from the insence towards themselves. It was supposed to cure them, mentally and physically.

I think the best part of the day was just the people watching. There was a group of sixth graders at the parliment building, and a group of probably high schoolers at the temple. I can't post their pictures here, but I will show them when I get home. I also notices how fashionable the young were! A lot of them have awesome hair, and great clothes, too. Tonight we are going to the fashion district, so I'm sure I will see some great looking people there!