Hi all,
The last day that we spent in Tokyo, Friday, 03 July, Mike had his
finals in the morning. He met us afterwards and we went to the Hotel
New Otani (a luxury hotel in Akasaka) for a traditional tea ceremony
(first picture). We strolled in the Japanese garden at the hotel
(second picture). Mike went out for dinner and drinks with his
classmates, and Jenn, Joe, and I went to the Toyokawa Inari Shrine
(or Myogon-ji) in Akasaka. It was an amazing place, a combination of
a Shinto shine and a Buddhist temple (third picture). Inari is the
Shinto Rice Diety and foxes are his traditional messengers. This
place has dozens of statues of foxes - you can see two in this
picture with the Buddhist temple. Shinto is the native Japanese
religion, but the Chinese brought Buddhism to Japan and it combined
with Shintoism uniquely and interestingly. We stopped at a wood-
fired pizza place for dinner on the walk back to our hotel. That
evening, Mike met us and we went out to a really neat bar in Akasaka
for our last evening together in Tokyo and shared a bottle of wine.
The next day, Saturday, 04 July, we had our last breakfast at our
hotel, packed up, took a taxi to a bigger hotel, and from there a bus
shuttle to the airport. We landed in New Jersey a couple of minutes
before we left Tokyo, had a several hour layover, and then flew to
Rochester - we were able to see many fireworks while in the air from
above them! Mike stayed in Tokyo for another four weeks of interning
at TMI Associates in the Mori Tower in Roppongi Hills. The end of
our summer vacation!
I really enjoyed Tokyo! Although I have no plans to go back at this
time, I definitely would consider another trip there if the timing
and purpose aligned and made it possible!
No too much is new here. Mike has started classes - he also has 11
interviews coming up for 2010 summer internships. He's been taking
some mock interviews for practice; the real ones start tomorrow.
Jenn has five more days to work at Target, then she plans to take a
road trip to visit Andrew in Long Island and friends at Binghamton
U. Then it's packing for her trip to Madrid on 09 September.
Joe and I are still working. The weather was fairly hot and humid
this past week, although it has cooled off a little bit over the
weekend.
I just finished reading "A Passage to India" - I miss reading
classics, and picked this up from the library. I really enjoyed it.
Now I'm ready a "cultural and literary companion" book on Madrid - it
gives some history and background of the city and the culture of the
people there. It's an interesting book.
That's about it. Hope everyone is well.
Kind regards,
Terry
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