Here are two quick snapshots of my hotel room.

More interesting here is a view out my windows of the Tokyo Dome City, as small part of Tokyo.

And here is why it is called Tokyo Dome. This is a concert arena. (I'm informed that the Rolling Stones will be performing here next week.)

And today after lunch, the people I'm meeting with, took me to a nearby Garden for a peaceful walk.
It was the Rigugien Gardens, described as a Waka poetry garden; and it was created in 1702

You can see the garden from the window of our meeting room.

This is just inside the entrance to the garden.

Here we are walking further into the garden.

You can see a view of the beautiful lake that the garden wraps around.

Today I went sightseeing in the Asakusa area of Tokyo. This is the Kaminatimon Gate, which has a 220-pound lantern hanging in the middle of it.
This is the entrance to the Nakmise Dori, a street of small shops selling all sorts of inexpensive gift type items.
Unfortunately most of the shops were closed by the time I was able to get here.

Here I am standing in front of the gate. You wouldn't believe how big that lantern is, I'm standing a good 12-15 feet in from of the gate, and it still looks huge.

And the far end of Nakmise Dori is another gate, this is the Horizon Gate.

Looking to the left of the Horizon Gate is a 5 story pagoda, which was built in 1970 to reconstruct one that had been there originally in the 17th century.

Walking through the Horizon Gate you face the Sonsoji Temple. This is apparently Tokyo's oldest temple (although the building is not the original one)

Well off to the left of the temple is the Nitemmon Gate. This was built in 1618 and is the only structure on the temple grounds to have survived from the Edo Period.
Everything else was destroyed by air raids in WWII.

Here is a closer look as part of this Gate.

This is Sometaro, a small restaurant serving Okonomi-yaki, a type of Japanese dinner pancake which you cook yourself.
If the guide book hadn't point this out I never would have found it. It was a fairly traditional type atmosphere, as you walk in there is a small stone area just inside the sliding door,
where you remove your shoes and place them in a bag. Then you step up onto the wooden floor of the restaurant, maybe 12" up from the ground. You sit on cushions on the floor.
Fortunately the menu is has english transitions and cooking instructions and the staff is willing to help out.

While my okonomi-yaki was cooking I took a quick snapshot to try to show you what it looked like.
The one I choose had pork, cabbage, onions, and a few other vegetables. What you get delivered to your table is a bowl with the ingredient, the batter, and an egg in it and you mix them together, put a little lard on the griddle, and then cook it.
Very tasty.

Today in the morning we were able to visit the portions of the Imperial Palace grounds that are open to the public. The approach to the Nijubashi Bridge and the Higashi Gyoen (East Garden).
This is a bridge that leads to the Nijubashi Bridge. You would go over this bridge, through the gate, and then loop around and cross the Nijubashi bridge to get to the main Imperial palace.

Here you can see the top of that bridge, and the gate at the far end.

And here is the Nijubashi Bridge.


The massive stone walls that surround the East Garden are very impressive. The East Garden was the former site of the Edo Castle, the defensive castle for the Tokyo area (then known as Edo).
This wall, forms the back of one of the inner defensive moats.

Here you can see the size of this wall and some of the Hakucho Moat.
Similar walls, but maybe slightly lower, run around the perimeter of the entire east garden with even wider outer moats.
This was clearly a very serious defensive position.

This is the base of the Tenshikaku Dojo, a defensive tower inside the Edo castle grounds. On top of this base there was a 5 story wooden structure.

While I was out I thought I would take a picture of the hotel where I've been staying, the Tokyo Dome Hotel.

Here is a different shot of the base of the hotel.

Thursday night it rained very heavily, and as a result the sky was very clear on Friday morning. Out the window of the meeting room
I was able to see Mt. Fuji very clearly.

Friday night I visited the Edo-Tokyo museum. They had several large models of Edo (the name of the city before it was changed to Tokyo)
These were so large that there are binoculars stationed around the perimeter to help visitors see the details of the models.

This is a scene of the main bridge into Edo.