Friday morning we woke up and went to Shibuya for lunch then to Kudanshita for this year's Yasukuni Shrine event. Yasukuni is an extremely touchy subject in East Asia and, as such, there were hordes of ultra-nationalists, liberals, and, to hold the line between them, riot police. I had always heard amazing stories of insanity happening there and we saw a little (e.g. old dudes dressed in historical military garb, ultra-nationalist militants, etc....) but didn't get much in the way of physical confrontations.
After Yasukuni, we headed to Nishi Shinjuku, a.ka. The Skyscraper District, for the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Headquarters, or Tochō, to see some good panoramas of the Tokyo Metro Area during good weather.
Next, we head back towards "central" Central Tokyo for Sakura Damon to have a look a look at the National Diet (Assembly) Building.
From the Diet we walked to the Imperial Palace, Kōkyo, Gardens and through to Tokyo Station to catch the Chūō Line back to Shinjuku.
We had earlier decided to come back to the Tochō after dark to get a better view of Tokyo at with a nearly full moon. It was spectacular and to top it off there was a massive thunderstorm brewing in the distance somewhere north of Mount Fuji.
After all the events of the day we were pretty tired, but no ready to give up, so we headed back to Futako Shinchi and met up with English Paul for some drinking and karaoke in Mizunokuchi.
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