Tohoku Japan 日本東北

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The left hand side of the Toshogu has a path leading to Futarasan Jinja 二荒山神社, a jinja for love.

Well, quite a lot of people going there and I found most of the items were related to love, family, husband and wife, lovers, etc.

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See! a temple for love in the middle, with Husband and wife pine tree.

The last one is the formal entrance to Futarasan Jinja

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The last stop of our trip with my wife and her friends is Tokyo. We stayed at Ueno. After we dropped our bags, we went to Shibamata 柴又 to meet my sister in law.

Shibamata is an old district which keeps some of the buildings in Edo period. We can walk through the old street, tasted some local food and enjoy some landscape inside Japanese house.

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Two more things to mention. First this is also the place for filming a famous Japanese TV programme 男人真命苦, so it has a museum about this. There is a statue of the main character outside the train station

Second, there is a small old pier which is still operating.

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After that, we went to Kiyosumi-shirakawa 清澄白河 for afternoon tea. This district is a cultural district, quiet and tidy, and the central park of this district is Kiyosumi Teien 清澄庭園.

It is hardly imagined that there is such an oasis in a city. Beautiful. Even the turtles make good use of the pond and sunlight.

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Our afternoon tea was at Blue Bottle coffee, a landmark coffee shop in this district. People used to line up for 30 minutes to get their coffee.

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We finished our freshly brewed coffee and walked to the restaurant for our dinner. Our route passed through the birth place of Ozu Yasujirō 小津安二郎, a famous director.

The dinner we went to was called Tempura Mikawa Zezankyo 美川是山居. The chief chef of this restaurant is famed as the god of tempura. You have to make reservation 1 month in advance and pay deposit during reservation.

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This is our menu. Omakase of course. You can only have what they offer. The wine list is quite comprehensive.

Food are delicious, it is up to its value although a bit pricey.

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The next day we went to the old Tsukiji 舊築地市場. Last time I was there was in 2009. Still busy and we had our lunch there. I found the prices were up a lot.

Hmmmm long time not seeing this seafood trolley.

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The date was 4 May 2019. The new emperor came to accept the people's greeting so Ginza area was assigned as people walkway. Therefore I can stand on the middle of the usually busy road to take picture.

After that we went to a coffee shop, where John Lennon and Yoko Ono once were sitting.