A moat surrounds the palace.

Entering the Yasukuni Shrine..

Nicely dressed up in traditional costumes.

A replica of the jets used during the war.

A part of a train that ran between the Thai-Burma Border. I wondered if this railway was the 'Death Railway'.

From here, we started to walk to Tokyo Dome City. We had lunch en route, at one of the street-side restaurants. It was a cheap combo set of rice+noodles at just Y530 (S$6.90)!


Tokyo Dome City is an amusement and shopping area. We were so lucky that a cosplay festival was held and SO MANY people were extravagantly dressed up in anime characters! It was a great eye-opener! But sadly, my knowledge of anime characters was very limited, so apart from identifying characters like 'L' in 'Deathnote' and some others, I could only admire at the costumes and hairstyles, and wonder how youngsters get so drawn into animes and mangas.

The amusement park at Dome City.

The Tokyo Dome is a baseball stadium.

Our next pit stop was Ikebukuro (池袋). It was packed with weekend shoppers. We went to Sunshine 60, the 2nd tallest building in Japan, just 2nd to the Landmark Tower in Yokohama. But we didn't go up the observatory deck, since we'd be admiring the city's skyline the next day, for free.


We walked along the Seibu Side of Ikebukuro. It was already big enough, and so we didn't have time to conquer the bigger Tobu territory, which boasts the largest department store in Japan.


Dinner was sushi! It was our only sushi meal in Japan, and it was simply delicious. Authentic sushis have wasabis inside, so it is the cook that determines how much wasabis you eat!

Excited followers of donuts.