My first day

This morning I got up, went back to the airport, and then took the monorail and train to get to my apartment. There are other options, but I picked the monorail because I thought it would be more scenic. (By the way you can click on these pictures to make them bigger.)

More on my apartment in another post...it deserves its own. So, how best to spend my first day in Japan? What else would I do on the day when the cherry blossoms are at their peak, but...go ride a roller coaster!  In particular, one of my favorites from my previous trip to Japan is Thunder Dolphin, right in the middle of the city, circling a shopping mall by the Tokyo Dome stadium. I would include some pictures of it running, but, unfortunately, it wasn't. No explanation as to why not, it was just closed.

So, onto the backup plan, to view cherry blossoms. Actually that was the plan all along, I just wanted to get the roller coaster ride in first. My guidebook recommended Yasukuni-jinja, a shrine just a short walk away. Things looked promising along the way:

I was expecting a park-like setting with families relaxing and taking in the natural beauty. Well, not so much:

This picture doesn't really begin to capture it, because I wanted to include some of the cherry blossoms. It was absolutely wall-to-wall people, with tables everywhere and hundreds of food booths. But there was also a little area where they were selling trees; this one was particularly nice:

I guess I really shouldn't have been too surprised by the crowds...a beautiful Sunday afternoon when the blossoms were at their peak, so it seemed like half of Tokyo was out. At any rate the food festival at the shrine wasn't really what I was looking for so I decided to go across the street to the Imperial Palace gardens. Getting there was a challenge all on its own, there were people lined up everywhere, with police directing pedestrian traffic.

However, once I got there, it was obvious that most of the people were there for something else, because most of them were not going into the gardens. One of the local colleges was having its graduation in one of the halls there, but I don't think that explains the masses of people. I'm not sure what was going on—and I expect that is going to happen a lot in the next few weeks!

There were still lots of people in the palace grounds, but this was more what I was expecting...families picnicking on blankets, enjoying the day. Busy, but considerably less crowded.

One final picture, of the moat surrounding the palace grounds:

So, tomorrow, off to school for orientation and placement.