Trip to Tokyo

Our monthly Family Home Evening with the senior couples in our mission and in the Asia North Area Office was May 11th. We again rode the bus from Kanto Lodge on base to The New Sanno Navy Lodge, which is very near the Tokyo Temple.

Views from the bus window --

 Have you ever seen a cleaner cement truck? 

Impressive architecture!

From The New Sanno we walked to the temple, past the French Embassy, the Hiro-o Inari Shrine, and other office/apartment buildings I can't identify. There are several foreign embassies in this area -- Romania, Greece, Laos, Ukraine, China, Lithuania, Slovakia, Argentina, Korea, Iran, Czech, to name a few.

Loved these tiny, delicate blossoms.

We had lunch at the same restaurant we'd been to with our bishop and his wife. When you order an entre here, you get coupons for a free gyoza plate on your next visit. So we enjoyed these gyozas, or pot stickers, alone with our meal. I had a wonderful salad -- a plate of noodles, shredded cabbage,lettuce, and other vegetables, topped with chicken in a yummy peanut sauce. Bruce had rice and soup with his meal, I can't remember what his main dish was (if I ever knew, considering the menu was in Japanese), but he didn't have any trouble eating it all!

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We had time to enjoy the Arisugawa-No-Miya Memorial Park (say that three times fast), across the street from the temple. It was cold and blustery rainy when we'd been here before -- this time clear and beautiful, just enough breeze to stay comfortable. 

There's no room for beautiful landscaping around the Tokyo Temple -- but this park right across the street is the next best thing. See the temple spire through the trees?

 Bruce struck up a conversation with a gentlemen from Ireland who is traveling the world taking pictures. He's an astro-photographer, loves to photograph the stars. He was an electrical engineer before retirement and two of his sons followed him in that field, one now works in Chicago and the other in Japan. Bruce loved talking with him and listening to his accent!

And the walk back to The New Sanno --

 The Hiro-o Inari Shrine I mentioned earlier

 A Japanese garage

 There's no place to bury power lines here. This is typical.

In the midst of high rises, concrete, steel, and tile buildings, Bruce did a double take, seeing this Lamborghini parked under a small, wood frame house. He walked down this little side road to get a closer look and said it was covered with dust! The white car on the right is a Mercedes.

And back to The New Sanno, where we were able to now check into our room on the fifth floor -- 

 See the temple spire in the center?

And a panoramic view

Monday evening was Family Home Evening with the other senior couples, including a pot luck dinner, always fun. The theme was spring and everyone shared favorite memories of everything from spring flowers and festivals to hibernating bears and hunting stories!  As as we walked back from the Asia North Area Church Office Building to the hotel, we came upon this -- how random!

Tuesday morning we enjoyed a temple session at the Tokyo Temple, our second session in Japanese (with English translation). This time we were with our own mission zone -- what a blessing to be with these young missionaries who we have come to know and love! 

And our return to Yokota on the bus, smiling because we aren't driving or on the train!