We got up and around early enough to get to our 10am appointment to tour the Tokyo Imperial Palace this morning. We headed out and caught the train to Tokyo station and started walking toward the palace grounds and were early enough we had time to grab a quick bite and coffee before heading into the waiting area for the tour itself. While in there we discovered that we would have listening devices but everything else about the tour including the introductory video was in Japanese. This was interesting because they weren’t always clear when to hit the button for the audio segments so we were either ahead or behind most of the tour. We seemed to be always in a pack with these cute little old ladies who I wanted to pick up and hold in my hands. The palace is on a huge park basically and we got to see the main state audience buildings, yes I believe it was in fact the building President George Bush threw up in. These buildings were built in the 60s and definitely looked like 60s versions of Japanese architecture. The tour was relatively limited but interesting and we got to see some spots few get to see. After the tour we talked with another couple from Houston that were more lost than we were and we helped each other get to the next part of our days, self touring the East Gardens of the Palace grounds. We went through a little museum of sorts that was just one room housing some old imperial artifacts and then headed through the east gardens. On the way we ran into another group from Texas who had just arrived as well and gave them some advice on places to visit in Tokyo, etc. We walked over and around the ruins of the old Edo castle that burned down in the 1600s but is the reason the Imperial Palace is located in its current position. We then walked through the National Gardens just north of the castle grounds. It was more a park with a lake than gardens as we had seen in other places but it was peaceful and pretty and a nice green area in the middle of such a big city. Our next stop was Yasakuni Shrine which has a controversial past as it is the place for enshrining Japan’s war heroes which includes several of the high ranking officials from World War 2 who were convicted of war crimes. It was interesting when we first got there and walked in we saw a cultural show was being put on in a nearby stage just outside the main shrine area so we watched that for a few minutes. We then heard some commotion and saw that there was a troop of old soldiers marching in wearing their WW2 uniforms and playing bugles. We kind of wondered what kind of reaction we would get as the only 2 westerners in the shrine at the time but they just went through their ritual and marched in then back out after playing Taps on the bugle for the dead. We took some photos of the shrine itself and were walking over by the war museum building (didn’t know that was what it was at the moment) and we ran into one of the soldiers and nodded to him. He stopped us and thanked us profusely in English for visiting the shrine. I thought that was an interesting experience to have and I hope he understood that we were grateful for the chance to visit his country. We then saw the museum for what it was, I saw the Zero they had on display so we went into the first floor area which was open and free and took a few pictures of the Zero, a train locomotive and 2 howitzers from the Japanese defeat on Okinawa. We then headed to the train station to go to Asakusa where we had a few sights we wanted to see before going on our river cruise into Tokyo Bay. We got out at the station after changing to the local subway line and bought our tickets for the 5:20p river cruise and then neaded through the Asakusa shopping streets that are lined with stall after stall selling everything from trinkets to food to clothing. At the end of this street is the Senso-ji temple which is one of the most beautiful in Tokyo. Unfortunately the main building was under renovation and was covered by a huge tent but we could still see the beautiful main gate and pagoda and the inside of the temple. After this we decided to head across the river to see Japan’s new tallest building the Tokyo Sky Tree Building. If you saw my pics from the train ride in from the airport day 1 you have seen it from a distance but I got a bunch of better pictures today. This building will be the main digital broadcast tower for NHK (Japan’s main TV entity) when they convert to all digital in 2012. It has currently just surpassed the Tokyo Tower for tallest structure in Japan but is only 349 meters of its planned 600+ meters. After looking around the info office and taking pictures at the construction site we headed back to Asakusa and had about an hour and a half to kill so Becky decided we should try Karaoke once while in Japan and there was a Big Echo (big Japanese karaoke chain) right outside the subway station so we headed over there. Now one thing to understand about Japanese karaoke versus karaoke in the US is you are in your own room with your group. You go in and tell them how long you intend to use the room, we chose 30 minutes, and they assign you a room and you go up and have a good old time. Now this all assumes you speak or read Japanese as ALL of the software of the karaoke machine, which was super high tech, was in Japanese. After fiddling with the touch screen device on the table and also the other on by the door for about 15 minutes we had just about given up but I had noticed a book earlier and Becky was looking through it and found some English songs listed with numbers next to the titles. Below the big screen TV, probably a 42 incher in a room about 4 feet square, was a numbered keypad so after a little trial and error we figured out that you could enter the number and press the blue button and your song would start. Becky chose “A Whole New World” which turned out to be a J-Pop version of the sone but had the same words and basic melody. We then played “Sexy Back” by JT and failed miserably on our duet of that so we had to redeem ourselves by dedicating “Sweet Caroline” to our Sweet Olivia Caroline and we did reasonably well on that on even belting out the BUM BUM BUMs. By this time our session was over so we headed back down, glad to be out of the super hot room as well (couldn’t figure out the AC controls), paid and tried to figure out what to do to kill time next. We decided to head into a starbucks and get a coupld of drinks and waited there until just about time to report to the boat dock. When we got to the boat dock we waited in line for a bit then they let us onto our boat called the “Himiko” which was designed by an anime artist and looks like a spaceship on the water. We took the boat down the Sumida River past several bridges and the Tokyo skyline including passing the Tsukuji Fish Market and finally heading out into Tokyo Bay and underneath the famous “Rainbow” bridge named for the colored lights on it at night. We arrived at the Odaiba man made island which houses among other things the wacky Fuji TV building which as one of our guidebooks said “looked like a lego creation by a kid on acid”. We walked along the beach a bit after arriving to wait for the sun to set so we could try and get a few good shots of the bridge and Tokyo after dark. We took a few right at dusk and decided to go walk through the 2 malls on the island and look for some food. We found a food court and I went with Japanese curry again and had a chicken cutlet with it and a piece of cheese curry bread which was like frybread with cheese and some of the curry sauce inside. Becky got the shrimp avacado sub from the Subway there in the food court and we had also seen that the McDonald’s there had a Ebi-Filet-o which was basically a fried shrimp cake so we split that just to try it. We both enjoyed our main meals and Becky and I agreed that McDonalds really has to bring the Ebi-Filet-o back to the US as it was like a crab cake burger and very tasty. We finished looking around the mall and headed to the Sega Joypolis which is a huge arcade/amusement area and I was a little disappointed you had to pay to get in but after we walked around looking then played a few games including our new favorite the japanese traditional drum game I think we both decided it was worth it. They had a cool car simulator ride thing but I couldn’t figure out how you got to go in so we stuck to the regular video games. After that we headed out and took a few more shots of the bridge and the Statue of Liberty replica they have there and we started looking for the station to head back to the hotel. The subway line we took back took us right back across the Rainbow Bridge so we got a great view of Tokyo as we headed back across. When we got back to Yurakucho station I stopped in a bookstore and got a couple of car magazines for some auto junkies back home (you know who you are) and then we headed back to the hotel for the evening after a long day. This is our last night in Tokyo only 2 more days left before heading out late friday.